Perception was everything, Mac mused.
Or was it nothing? However Persephone Stewart had been brought to Base, Mac could only be sure of one thing: it wasn’t to follow the dream of applying her training and knowledge to the statistical analysis of dissolved substances in tidal currents. Or any other research.
“Poor ’Sephe,” Mac whispered into her sweater.
Which brought her inevitably back to one question: why was the Ministry’s only other “field-ready” Earth agent in Pod Three?
She nodded to herself. Because something terrible had happened. Or was happening, even now.
Mac got up to find a real blanket.
- Encounter -
THERE were tales told of ships that appeared in the right place at just the right time. Heroes were made of such tales. Legends were born.
It was yet to be determined if the anticipated arrival of the dread-naught Guan Yu into the definitely unanticipated chaos that was the Eeling System qualified.
“Report!”
On that command, displays winked into life in the air in front of Captain Frank Wu: feeds from navigation, sensors, ship status. The first two pulsed with warnings in red, vivid yellow, and mauve—matched to the circulatory fluids of the Guan Yu’s trispecies’ crew. Threat should be personal.
“What in the—” Wu leaned forward and stabbed a finger into the sensor display to send its image of the planet they were approaching to the center of the bridge, enlarged to its maximum size. “The Dhryn!”
“Mesu crawlik sa!”
No need to understand gutter-Norwelliian to grasp the essence of that outburst from the mouth cavity of his first officer, Naseet Melosh. Wu shifted back in his chair, instinctively farther from the image, fingers seeking the elegant goatee on his chin out of habit. Nice if swearing would help.
The bridge of the Guan Yu grew unnervingly silent as everyone, Human, Norwellii, and Scassian alike, stared at the sight now hovering in front of them all.
None of them had seen a planet being digested before.
Two of Ascendis’ land masses were visible from their approach lane. Both had been verdant green, dappled with the blue of waterways and the golden bronze of the Eelings’ compact, tidy cities. Now, huge swathes of pale dirty brown cut along perfect lines, as though the world was being skinned by invisible knives. The lines grew even as they watched in horror, crisscrossing one another, growing in width as well as length, taking everything.
The cities? They were obscured by dark clouds, as if set ablaze.
Perversely, the sky itself sparkled, as if its day was filled with stars. The number of attacking ships that implied . . . Wu swallowed. “Tea, please,” he ordered quietly, then “Amsu, are there any more in the system?”
His scan-tech started at her name and bent over her console. “No. No, sir. No other Dhryn. There’s scattered Eeling traffic heading—there’s no consistent direction, sir.”
“Yes, there is consistency,” Melosh disagreed. “They go away.” His voice, a soft, well-modulated soprano, was always something of a shock, coming as it did from deep within that gaping triangular pit lined with writhing orange fibroids. “They flee in any direction left to them. These are not transect-capable vessels; the Eelings have no refuge within this system. I must postulate hysteria.”
“Understandable. Communications, I want every scrap of sensor data transmitted to Earthgov. Start sending relay drones back through the transect. Two-minute intervals. Keep sending until I tell you to stop or you run out.” Wu didn’t wait for the curt affirmative. “Anyone come through the transect after us?” He accepted the fine china cup from the ensign. Out of habit, he sniffed the steam rising from the dark liquid. Odd. He couldn’t smell anything. Still, the small habit comforted.
“No, sir. Not yet. But I can’t raise the Eeling’s transect station to confirm and—” the scan tech waved her display to replace the planet, “—it’s a mess out here. Damaged ships is the least of it. There’s no organized defense.”
“There’s us,” Wu corrected.
“Us? We came here for an engine refit,” Melosh reminded his commander. “We off-loaded our live armaments. We cannot close the transect from only one end. We cannot save whatever remains of this world. We can run, but the Dhryn could follow.”
Wu turned and met his own reflections in each of the Norwelliian’s immense emerald pupils. Not surprisingly, he looked grim in all three.
Timing, Wu knew full well, didn’t make heroes. Resolve did.
“You’re right, Melosh. There’s only one way we can hope to stop the Dhryn and that’s to catch them on the planet surface. Get the crew to the escape pods.” Putting his tea aside, Wu stood, straightening his uniform jacket with a brisk tug. “But first, find me the weakest spot on this planet’s crust.”
The mighty Guan Yu spat out her children, all nestled in their tiny ships, then sprang in silence toward the twitching corpse of a world. Her captain sat quietly at the pilot’s console, tea back in hand, ready to do what had to be done.
No hero. Not he.
A chance, nothing more.
He’d take it.
Then, the scope of the nightmare made itself known as the Dhryn’s Progenitor Ship came into view from around the far side of the planet, catching the sunlight like a rising crescent moon. Glitter rained down from her to the surface, still more returned, until it seemed to any watching that the mammoth Dhryn vessel didn’t orbit on her own but instead floated atop a silver fountain of inconceivable size.
Then specks from that fountain swerved, heading straight toward the Guan Yu. Hundreds. Thousands.
He had no means to destroy her.
Wu’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he punched a control. The Guan Yu hurtled downward even faster than before, seeking the heart of what had been the home of the Eelings.
He could only make the Dhryn pay.
The escape pods went first, each disappearing within a cloud of smaller, faster ships. Swarmed. Consumed.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Wu tossed aside his teacup and secured the neck fastenings of his helmet. Lights flashed and dimmed, flashed and dimmed. The Guan Yu lost atmospheric integrity. One or more seals had failed.
Dissolved.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take you with me,” Wu promised his unwanted guests.
As the first feeder, clothed in silver, drifted down her corridors, the Guan Yu screamed her way through the atmosphere and stabbed into the weakest part of Ascendis’ crust. Shock waves rippled across the continent, setting off quakes and volcanoes.
The air itself burned.
The Great Journey must continue until home is attained. That which is Dhryn has remembered. All that is Dhryn shares that goal.
There will be danger.
There will be hardship.
It is the way of the Journey, that most will not reach its end.
So long as that which is Dhryn achieves safe haven, all sacrifice is joy.
- 3 -
TOUR AND TROUBLE
“I TOLD YOU to go, Lamisah. Why didn’t you listen?”
A soft, reasonable voice. The voice of friendship, of trust.
The words. It hadn’t been those words. Those—were wrong.
She’d go, but she couldn’t see.
Mac shoved her hands outward, pushing at the darkness. The darkness burned.
She screamed as her fingers dissolved, as the backs of her hands caught fire, as the bones within her palms curled like putty and dripped away. Drip. Drip.
She screamed as the drips were sucked into mouths—into mouths that insisted, in their soft, reasonable voices, voices of friendship, of trust:
“We told you to go, Lamisah. We warned you.
Didn’t we?”
Her arms went next . . .
Mac rubbed her hands up and down her arms, shudders coursing through her body until it was all she could do to sit still, to stay on the couch, to fight for calm.
“That was—” she
began, then pressed her lips together. A familiar nightmare, although it usually started at an earlier moment. If she had to dream it, Mac preferred this version. She’d rather face a floating bag of organic acids than look into those familiar yellow-irised eyes and see their warm glow dim, see them sink, watch him become . . .
“No!”
She leaped to her feet and went to her desk, gripping it with both hands. One hand and one substitute, Mac corrected herself, always aware of the difference, though she couldn’t feel one. Illogical. Both delivered the same sensory information. One simply used nonbiological circuitry.
One wasn’t hers.
No chance of more sleep, not with her body wringing wet with sweat and her heart jumping in sickening thuds within her chest. Mac unopaqued the wall and ceiling, hoping for dawn.
Close. No stars, but the distant peaks snarled against a paling sky. Time to be up and moving, she assured herself. Not that she felt like either.
A shower, short and cold, a fresh set of coveralls, and a barefoot prowl after coffee made the coming day seem slightly less impossible. Merely onerous. Before it had to really start, Mac took her steaming mug outside, finding a perch on the stairs leading up and around the wall of Pod Three where she could watch the rest of Base wake up.
The muted, directionless light of predawn made mysteries of pods and walkways, turned them into pale-rimmed shadows curved one into the other. The walkways were still damp from yesterday’s rain, evaporative drying rarely a factor around here. Something a few new students hadn’t learned yet, Mac decided with amusement, eyeing a series of towels hanging heavy and soaked from the terrace of Pod Two. Probably wetter now than last night.
The moisture played tricks with hearing, too. The lapping of ocean against pod and rocky shore was as intimate as breathing; footsteps and yawns loud and clear well before Mac spotted the first group of students making their way to Pod Three for breakfast.
The sun leered over the mountains at her, a reminder time wasn’t patient. She cradled her mug between her hands, lifted it to savor the rich aroma of coffee on sea air, impatient for it to cool. Habit. Mac tended to ignore minor details such as how long her cup had sat on desk or workbench, so she’d grown used to what she gulped being cold, eventually liking it that way. Unfortunately, grad students were prone to random helpful acts, and she’d scalded her mouth more than once since coming to Base when someone reheated her coffee without warning.
What first: Mudge or breakfast? She was not combining the two.
“Mind if I join you?”
Mac turned her head with a smile. “Morning, Case.” She gestured to the stair beside her and the student sat down. He was dressed for diving, though his wet suit was open at the neck and sleeves, the hood hanging down his back. His bare feet were porcelain pale and his toes, like his fingers, boasted reddish hairs at their joints. Like Mac, he carried a steaming mug in one hand. In the other was a promisingly plump bag.
Case grinned at her interest. “Muffin?”
“Thanks.” Mac pulled one from the proffered bag. Warm, yes. Also lopsided and unexpectedly green. New cooks. She took a generous bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Mint,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Now that’s original.”
“But is it edible?” Case examined his own muffin dubiously.
“You’ll have worse,” Mac assured him. She was pleased he’d sought her out; it took some students a tedious amount of time to realize research staff were people, too. They ate in companionable silence for a moment, watching a raft of bufflehead ducks bobbing on the swells. “Where are you diving today?” she asked.
“We were heading for the reefs—down to the glass sponge observation station.” He didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “I’ve seen remote images of the deep corals off the coast of Norway, but nothing as up close as you have here.”
“Were?” Mac had learned long ago how to instill a wealth of interested neutrality into both voice and expression. Lee’s plans weren’t hers to question—in front of his still-shiny student, anyway. “What changed?”
Case looked taken aback by her question. “That’s what I was going to ask you. A memo came through everyone’s imp, just when we were suiting up. No diving. No skim traffic. Nothing on-water today. Even the t-lev from Vancouver’s been delayed until tonight.” A sideways, very wise look from those sea-faded eyes. “That’s not usual stuff here, is it, Mac?”
“No, Case. No, it’s not.” Mug in one hand, Mac dusted crumbs from her thighs with the other as she rose to her feet. “Then again,” she smiled, “what is? Someone’s probably forgotten to post they’re running a sensitive assay in the inlet this morning. I’ll look into it. Thanks for breakfast.”
His “You’re welcome,” hardly registered. Mac’s thoughts were racing ahead even as she climbed the stairs to her office at her normal pace.
Seeing the tactic for what it was, knowing she had no reason to feel any special bond to ’Sephe, any friendship, didn’t help. Mac still felt betrayed. What was ’Sephe up to? Whatever it was, if she’d interfered with Base operations . . .
She’d be leaving on the next t-lev.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
As if accustomed to having his breakfast interrupted by an infuriated woman in hiking gear, Mudge put down his coffee, calmly wiped his mouth with a napkin, and left the table to find his rainsuit. He pulled on the garment, still without a word.
Just as well. Mac doubted she could engage in reasonable conversation at the moment.
She hadn’t found ’Sephe. She had found, however, the source of the stay-put, stay-dry order.
Dr. Mackenzie Connor.
Not by name, but ’Sephe—or someone—had used Mac’s codes to essentially shut down operations for the day, on a day when a good third of Base should be heading out to the field. The day before Mac herself planned to go, meaning she’d be delayed at least that long herself. She wasn’t the only one upset. Her incoming mail this morning ranged from polite protest to profanity, although Mac had taken a certain satisfaction from replying “wasn’t me” each time.
If the Ministry agent thought this would keep her from taking Mudge to the ridge, Mac fumed to herself, ’Sephe hadn’t read the right files.
Meanwhile, Mudge had fastened his last boot and now looked at her interrogatively, his small eyes bright with anticipation. Mac jerked her head at the door, then led the way.
A shame security didn’t try to stop them. Mac had prepared several versions of a scathing protest at such misuse of her codes, her people, and her facility. But no one appeared to notice another two figures in rainsuits wandering the corridors, so she filed her protest for later.
Mac waited for an empty lift to take them to the pod roof. Stepping out first, she reached back and punched in the command for the lowermost level, sending the lift where it would wait until someone from administration could be found to input the retrieval sequence. This early in the season, when students were having trouble finding their own boots, let alone responsible staff? Her lip curled with satisfaction. Why make ’Sephe’s life easier?
“This way,” she told Mudge, walking through puddles. The rain hadn’t started again, but yesterday’s deluge had filled every depression and dimple on the roof. Not that the roof was large. In point of fact, it wasn’t supposed to exist at all, being another of those “handy, that” modifications. The original pod design had called for an irregular upper surface, transparent from within and appearing as mauve-and-gray stone from without. No one and nothing else was to be on it. Ideal camouflage, sure to appease those who wanted no sign of Human presence in Castle Inlet.
Which had lasted as long as it had taken the first grad student to find a hammer. Tell imaginative and curious scientists they couldn’t use the top of their own building? Who’d thought that would work? All but Pod Six eventually grew a small roof consisting of a labyrinth of narrow bands and bulges made of mem-wood, often, but not always, flat. Each new bout of construction had been justified wit
h a scientific purpose: to secure an antenna or collector, to house a weather assembly, and so forth. Over the years, as the roofs became more useful and used, those purposes had expanded somewhat.
Mac led Mudge past planters filled with mud—the planters had withstood the Ro attack but last year’s vegetable gardens hadn’t fared well, around the jumbled heap of newly replaced lawn chairs belonging to the Norcoast Astronomy Club—though the frequent cloud cover made precious little difference to attendance at “meetings” and almost none of the members could tell a star from a planet—and, finally, to a small, sturdy shed that had, alone among all the structures perched on Pod Three, been constructed to look as much like a natural rock formation as mem-wood, plaster, and imagination could allow.
It had been a nice gesture. It might even have worked, had it not been for the giant parrot adorning one side of the shed. Appeared five summers ago, Mac recalled, patting the bird’s technicolor wing fondly. Preposterous thing, but with a cheerful, jaunty look. There was a pirate flag firmly in its beak; the traditional skull and crossbones replaced by a salmon skeleton. Barnacle Bill, they called it, and students learned to sing the parrot’s exploits in bawdy detail. Emily knew every verse. Mac had once accused her friend of making up the worst of them to shock her new students.
Emily had only smiled.
The memory might have been a floodgate. Mac tried to concentrate on stepping over real puddles, even as her mind swam with questions. Had Emily left with the Ro? Had the aliens truly left? And what did “leaving” mean to beings who could make their own transects through space at will?
Or had Emily been taken? But by whom? The grim, black-garbed defenders of Earth? Their counterparts from any other threatened world?
Migration: Species Imperative #2 Page 6