Regeneration (Czerneda)

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Hide from what? “We could leave,” she suggested, holding back a shudder. “We could leave right now and let a team come back.” The look he gave her was very likely the one she’d given Kammie when told to abandon the field stations because of a mere earthquake. Mac sighed. “Fine. But this never ends well in vids.”

  “I don’t watch them.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She sniffed the air. “C’mon. There are more here.”

  More wasn’t the right word, Mac decided a moment later, as she and Norris stared down at what had been Dhryn. “Three,” she guessed, using a toe to shift what remained of a leg so she could see underneath. There was clothing. Bone. Little else. “They’ve been eaten,” she added helpfully.

  “I can see that.” To his credit, Norris was stone-faced and calm. He raised his scanner, passing it over what was left. “Cannibalism,” he concluded briskly. “There have been cases.”

  Mac raised her eyebrows. “There have?”

  “Asteroid miners. Pre-transect deep space missions. Not uncommon.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  He pulled out his imp with a challenging look. Mac shook her head, feeling again the Progenitor’s remorse. And appetite. “You could be right,” she admitted grudgingly. “Sure we can’t leave now?”

  “Of course not.” Norris nodded to the hangar exit. “We’ve two and a half hours left. The only danger here is ignorance.”

  “I’ll remind you you said that,” she told him, but followed anyway.

  The engineer knew the ship. Knew the floor plan, Mac corrected, watching Norris closely. He made the right turns. He announced, correctly, what would be behind doors before opening them. She was less impressed that he expected her to go first through those doors.

  Sure, let the biologist find the icky bodies.

  Although, to Mac’s unspoken relief, they found no more corpses. The doors led to nothing more exciting than intersecting corridors and holds. Many holds, crammed to their ceilings. The Uosanah had been an active freighter, fully loaded with goods bound for Cryssin Colony, likely en route to Haven before the Ro attack had changed everything.

  Norris was hunting for a link to the ship’s data systems, which, he claimed, should be available within the holds. If they found one, they wouldn’t have to go all the way to the Uosanah’s bridge. On that basis, Mac was happy to tag along, but so far, they’d had no luck. So much for floor plans.

  The latest hold was the largest yet. Norris cheered, convinced it must hold an access panel. While he checked his ’screen for details on this part of the ship, Mac pulled aside the wrapping on the nearest crate and picked apart packing material until she uncovered its contents. “Ah.”

  “You’ve found something?” Norris demanded, hurrying over.

  She lifted out an umbrella and opened it for his inspection. Bold stripes of red, green, and orange ran around it. There was a second handhold, farther up the handle. Well-suited to Dhryn. “They don’t like rain.”

  “Dr. Connor, we’re looking for ship’s data. There’s no time for—”

  “Speaking of which, it’s suppertime on the Joy. I don’t know about you, but I missed lunch.” Missed breakfast and lost lunch, but the difference didn’t matter to her empty stomach. Mac leaned the umbrella against the crate and pulled open her bag. From it, she drew two nutrient bars, one of which she passed to an astonished Norris. She found her bottle of water and took a slug. “I’ve learned to travel prepared,” she said, biting into the bar. “Go ahead. I’ve more.”

  He sniffed it, then took a bite. He made a face. “This is awful.”

  “Stops you eating too many.” Her stomach growled and Mac took another, bigger bite. She waved her stick at Norris. “We could use a ship like yours at Base—my research station. Any chance of getting the specs? When we get back,” she qualified, handing him the water. “We have transparent membrane, of course, but to go to any depth we need something that can take pressure.”

  He gave her a strange look. “My ship? Oh. You mean the projector. It’s just a fancy internal display, Dr. Connor. What—did you think my ship somehow turned transparent?”

  Touché. Mac laughed. “Biologist,” she quipped. “But the end result is extraordinary. I’d really like to have it.”

  “You’re welcome to the schematics,” he replied, tucking the rest of his bar into a pocket. “We should—”

  “Get going. Yes.” Mac finished hers and put away the water bottle, feeling almost normal again. Amazing what a little sustenance could do. “What now?”

  “There should be a panel in here.” Norris checked the time and shook his head. “It’s taking too long. We’ll have to split up to check along the walls. You know what to look for—”

  “Not really.”

  “Any panel that has the outline of the ship on or beside it. Call me if you find one.”

  “No com.” At least, none that he’d given her. Fieldwork amateur.

  Norris grinned and shouted, “Hello!”

  The echoes reverberated throughout the hold.

  “Point taken,” Mac said, grinning back. She looked around. In keeping with all Dhryn structures she’d seen, the hold walls were at angles less than perpendicular. Racks laden with crates lined both sides. Here, the left wall angled sharper than the right, its first rack barely above her head. Norris would have to duck. “I’ll take this side,” she offered.

  On impulse, she grabbed the umbrella.

  The center aisle of the hold had been bright and open. Along the wall, the light was lessened by the overhead rack. Worse, Mac found herself passing through the shadows cast by huge boxes. Each band of darkness was regular and sharp. Five quick steps took her back into light.

  Two slow steps took her back into the dark.

  It wasn’t pitch. She could see well enough to know there weren’t panels of any description, but to be sure, she trailed the fingers of her left hand over the cool metal. Her right clutched the umbrella. An unlikely weapon; uncertain comfort. She considered dropping it, but couldn’t find the right spot. Mustn’t leave a mess.

  Within the next patch of shadow, her foot kicked something small and sent it skittering forward into the light. Mac bent to pick it up. “Well, I’ll be . . .” she murmured. It was a Dhryn food cylinder. She held it up and peered inside. Not empty. Its contents had dried and shriveled into a lump.

  There were more. The swathe of light at her feet was littered with them. “They weren’t starving,” she whispered uneasily. She followed the refuse into the aisle and found herself in front of an open door.

  Mac stepped inside what could only be a storage unit. Its shelves were lined with tidy rows of food cylinders, thousands of them. Only near the door were any disturbed. There, a shelf was smashed and cylinders were scattered everywhere, as if . . .

  She backed out of the unit, hand tight on the umbrella. “Norris!”

  . . . as if someone or something had discovered they weren’t edible.

  “Norris!” Mac put her back to the hold wall.

  Something scurried along the overhead rack.

  Her breath caught. It couldn’t be.

  Scurry, scurry.

  She could hear running footsteps and didn’t dare call out again. Didn’t dare do anything. Sweat trickled down her forehead, evaporating to chill in the dry air of the hold. She didn’t dare shiver.

  Skitter, scurry.

  There. Above and to her right. The direction Norris would come.

  An ambush?

  Mac didn’t think, she exploded into a run, weaving between crates, heading away from the Ro—the walker—and the man. As she ran, she found her voice and shouted. “The Ro are here. Go back, Norris! Call for help!” The words were punctuated by her thudding feet.

  Spit! Pop!

  Loud, but not as close. If the walker understood what she’d said—had chosen to chase Norris—they were in worse trouble.

  There was worse? “Hurry, Norris!”

  She’d run in
to the far wall of the hold soon. Mac began searching for a hiding place, cursing the tidy habits of Dhryn under her breath. Each crate was neatly aligned with its neighbor, offering nothing that would shelter a speck of dust, let alone a desperate Human.

  Wait. Just ahead two crates overhung their pallet, as if pushed. Tearing off her backpack, Mac flung herself on her stomach and wiggled into the tight space beneath. She squeezed back as far she could, pulling the pack and umbrella under with her.

  Then did her best to be invisible.

  16

  ENCOUNTER AND EFFECT

  NOTHING TO SEE here. Mac did her best to believe it. Maybe the Ro would, too. Her legs were already cramping and her right arm, caught beneath her body, would shortly be asleep. These minor discomforts were welcome distractions. She wanted to avoid thinking about the corridors of the Dhryn ship—of Norris running back—of what it would be like to try and remember the way when something was chasing you, something you couldn’t see . . . holding your breath so you could listen for any sound . . .

  Stop that.

  She hadn’t heard anything more, from the Ro or Norris. She might have been wrong. Norris would have a comment or two about that.

  For once, she’d love to take the blame. She took slow, light breaths.

  Something stank. Mac took a deeper sniff and almost gagged. She knew that smell.

  Dead Dhryn.

  All her senses must have been shut down by fear to miss it. Mac only now appreciated that her shoulder and hip weren’t pressed against another crate, but into something yielding.

  She didn’t panic. Nothing wrong with sharing space with a corpse, she assured herself.

  Unless it was warm.

  Mac held the air in her lungs, listening over the frantic thudding of her heart. No doubt about it.

  Something else was breathing behind her.

  She exhaled slowly and gently, resuming her own breathing. After all, she reasoned wildly, she’d been fine so far. Why suffocate?

  She lay on her stomach, her right arm pinned beneath, her head turned so she could look out of her hiding place. As if she’d see the Ro walker. Now, gradually, Mac lifted her head and rolled it on her chin, eyes straining at the black shadows behind her.

  A small piece of shadow moved closer, tentatively, slowly. She made herself stay still as a three-fingered hand formed in the light. It reached toward her face then withdrew, reached again and stopped in midair, trembling. Its skin was puckered and seamed, the digits twisted. Dark drops fell from the palm.

  She’d seen a hand like that before.

  Mac looked harder and made out the glint of an eye in the darkest shadow. Just her luck. She felt profoundly abused. The only hiding place from the Ro, inhabited by the Dhryn version of insane.

  When adult Dhryn failed to Flower into their final metamorphosis, it was called the Wasting. Those trapped within their degrading bodies were shunned, and set aside to die. Brymn had feared that fate. Ordinary Dhryn “did not think of it.” Mac had been . . . curious.

  Really not curious at the moment, she decided. A Wasted was dangerous. Brymn had been emphatic in his warning. They were known to attack other Dhryn. Mac’s heart began to race again.

  The gnawed remains of the Uosanah crew . . . the available but ignored food within the storage unit . . . yummy fresh Human.

  Just as she tensed to squirm away as quickly as possible, Ro or not, the hand fell to the deck, palm up. The fingers spasmed once, as if in entreaty, then were still.

  Mac hesitated, remembering more of that conversation with Brymn, another lifetime ago. She’d told him she sought the truth. She’d claimed it was part of being Human to act . . . to help.

  She’d watched him Flower into something far worse.

  Her left hand was touching her pack. Moving very slowly, Mac reached inside until her fingers closed on a nutrient bar. She brought it out, bringing her left arm over her head until her hand was near the Wasted’s. “This is our food,” she whispered as quietly as she could. She laid the bar on its palm.

  The fingers curled closed. The hand withdrew. She could see the glint of the eye, then it was gone; the head had changed position. Trying her offering?

  The hand reappeared, empty and palm up. Didn’t bother to chew. Mac reached into her pack and found another bar. It vanished in turn. When the hand came out a third time, she whispered, “I’m sorry. That’s all I have.”

  A vibration she felt through the floor. Distress.

  It understood?

  “I’m Mac—” Dhryn formalities seemed even more pointless than usual. “Who are you?”

  The voice was faint but clear. “I do not exist.”

  Aliens. Mac lifted her head until it touched the crate above, trying to see more of the Dhryn. “We can discuss that later,” she told it. “Can you walk?”

  Her first fear, that the Ro would be waiting for them, proved unfounded. Her second, that the Wasted was wedged under the crate for good, proved uncomfortably close to the truth. It was too weak to struggle free on its own. She’d finally had to lie down and pull at whatever emaciated limbs she could reach. She did so as gently as possible, gradually working the Dhryn free.

  During this process, they’d been sitting ducks. Proving the Ro was otherwise occupied.

  Doing her best not to think about how, Mac sat beside the Dhryn, letting it recover. In the light, the reason for calling this state the “Wasting” was apparent. The being was little more than fracturing skin over bone. She was astonished it still breathed. The arms were sticks, the legs not much better. The hands . . . she leaned closer. Three were missing, severed neatly. This had been a Dhryn of accomplishment, thrice honored by his Progenitor. No other clues. Its—his, she told herself—his body bore no bands of cloth. They probably wouldn’t have stayed up anyway.

  The rotting flesh smell came from the fissures in his skin. There was nothing she could do about those, not here, and the fluid they leaked was going to leave a trail.

  “You need to stand,” she said. Where was Norris? She saw the umbrella and offered it. “Use this.”

  “Why?” The Wasted lifted his face to hers. The yellow of his eyes was sallow and pale, the flesh pulled away from the bony ridges of his features to show her the precise shape of his skull. His lips barely moved. When they did, they bled. “I do not exist.”

  “The Ro do,” she said deliberately. “There’s one on your ship. We have to leave, now.”

  When his eyes half closed, as if in defeat, she sharpened her tone. “I am Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. That which is Dhryn must survive. Do you understand me?”

  “You are Human,” he whispered in perfect Instella, “I do not exist. The Progenitors are gone. What is Dhryn now?”

  Not a Haven Dhryn. A more worldly creature. Mac knelt beside him. “Not all the Progenitors are gone,” she pleaded, using the oomling tongue. “Come with me. Don’t let the Ro win.”

  His eyes closed and she thought he’d given up. Then, slowly, one hand reached for the umbrella. She hurried to put it in his grasp and help him stand.

  If it hadn’t been for his wheezing breath and halting, but steady steps, she might have walked with the dead. Certainly the smell was there. Mac ignored it. Normal Dhryn body posture, slanting forward at almost forty-five degrees, worked in her favor. Her right shoulder fit nicely under his left uppermost arm, which lacked a hand. He gripped the umbrella in his right upper and middle hands. As for his mass?

  Right now, it was less than hers. She supported a body that shouldn’t be alive. And they made progress. The Wasted knew the ship and didn’t hesitate as he led her back to the hangar. The trip was shorter than she remembered, without side trips to investigate every door.

  Where was Norris?

  Mac listened for the Ro, the skin at the back of her neck crawling with fear. No way to hide or outrun the creature now. Not with the Wasted; not in these open halls.

  They turned a corner and Mac gave a sigh of relief, recogn
izing the final stretch of corridor. “Almost there,” she said.

  A voice in her ear, strained with effort. “Why are Humans at Haven?”

  “Long story,” she temporized. “Let’s get out of here first.”

  She hadn’t remembered the door to the hangar being open, but Norris could have left it that way, to help her get through quickly. No choice. Mac and the Wasted shuffled forward.

  They passed the pile of cloth and rotting bone, neither glancing in its direction.

  The lev came into view. Nothing had ever looked so good, Mac decided, trying not to hurry. Her blood pounded in her ears, making it hard to listen for what might be hiding between the shuttles as they passed.

  “That is your ship?” said the Wasted.

  “Yes—” Mac’s voice broke as she saw the form crumpled in the lev’s shadow. “Wait here,” she said, disentangling herself from the being’s hold as carefully as haste allowed.

  Then she ran to Norris.

  He’d almost made it, she realized in horror, dropping to her knees beside the body at the foot of the lev’s blood-splattered ramp. Her hands didn’t know where to touch. There was hardly anything of him not sliced apart, hardly anything but his face still recognizable. Red arched in all directions.

  Slime glistened.

  “Human!”

  Mac whirled, unable to credit that deep bellow had come from the Wasted, amazed to see him rushing toward her, using his hands and stumps as well as feet. He reared up, drew in a deep breath, then retched. She flung herself away and back as acid spewed forth from his mouth, to coat a nightmare from thin air.

  A nightmare that screamed!

  Mac writhed on the floor, hands tight over her ears, but it made no difference. The sound penetrated her nerves until she could barely think. She tried to see what was happening.

  The Wasted had dropped flat on the deck, limbs outstretched.

  While something died.