“I’ve never wanted to travel.”
“Oh.”
Could she be any less tactful? “Last time,” Mac offered, “they brought me to a way station and we—Brymn and I—took a Dhryn ship from there.”
“What was it like? Their ship?”
He was so interested, she felt guilty. As well as nauseous . Hopefully, Fourteen was faring better. “I didn’t see more than my quarters and one corridor. A bit of the hold, I think. Sorry. The doors and walls weren’t perpendicular. There was gravity and—” Mac paused, then finished reluctantly, “—not a drop of water.” She fell silent. Brymn had saved her then, too.
“That was a brave thing to do.”
“What? Oh, my going with the Dhryn?” Mac would have laughed if she could. “I’m not sure how brave it was. There didn’t seem any other choice. Everything happened so quickly and he—they—” she fumbled “—the Ministry wanted me to go.”
Too late. Over the years, Mudge had developed radar for exactly what she tried to avoid. “He? He who?”
Mac pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. It didn’t stop the ache, but provided a welcome distraction. “The Ministry’s liaison for Brymn, during his visit to Earth. He made the arrangements to get us offworld.” Now there was a distraction, she thought. Was Nik on this lev? Had he been one of the anonymous figures in black?
“Doesn’t ‘he’ have a name?”
Not if he hasn’t shown himself, Mac decided. Not with this compartment undoubtedly monitored. Aloud: “Something complicated, eastern Europe-ish. Annoying civil servant type. You’d like him.”
The lev picked that moment to swoop downward. “Someone’s in a hurry to land,” Mudge observed, refastening his harness and giving hers a test pull.
“Suits me,” Mac said.
“What can we expect, Norcoast? One call and a small cell? Or just the cell.”
He deserved to know, she decided, hearing the feather of understandable anxiety in Mudge’s voice. Not everything . The IU’s invitation was still in her pocket, but Mac had no idea what her status was anymore. She concentrated on picking the right words, annoyed with how difficult it seemed. “The Ministry has unusual powers right now, Oversight. ‘Threat to the species,’ that sort of thing. Odds are good this is about information. They’ll have questions for us. Order us to keep silent or not bother. Send us home.”
“Or?”
“Or we disappear, for as long as that threat exists and we’re an added risk.” Mac studied his face as the lev leveled out again. “I guess you’re sorry you followed me.”
His expression was set and pale. There were drops of sweat on his forehead, more beading his nose and upper lip. But he shook his head emphatically. “I’m sorry you didn’t come to me with this—tell me what was happening.”
“I couldn’t tell my own father,” Mac reminded him. “Besides,” she added lightly, swaying with him as the lev did some more maneuvering, “I didn’t think you’d—” care, “—be interested.”
He might have heard the word she didn’t use. “I care about what affects the Wilderness Trust,” his voice was as cold and hard as she’d ever heard it. “Because of you—because of what you brought to Castle Inlet—an entire ridge has been artificially stripped. Grant you, it’s an opportunity to regenerate some of the rarer successional species—but we have sufficient natural disasters without your help. This is your fault, Norcoast. You were selfish. Thoughtless. You should have stayed away! You should never have come back!”
The last were shouts that echoed in the compartment, pounding inside her wounded head, every word horrid and familiar. Mac could hardly see past the tears welling up in her eyes. She turned and struck wildly at him. “Don’t you tell me what I should have done!” she shouted back. “I know! I know!” Her face grew wet with more than tears. Warm blood ran down her left cheek. Some or all of the patches holding her torn scalp had ripped free. Blood entered her mouth, making her choke on the words: “I know!”
He had hold of her. “Stop,” she heard him say in a shattered voice. “Stop, Norcoast. I didn’t mean any of it. It isn’t true. I’m sorry. I’m scared. I’m angry. I don’t blame you. Of course I don’t. The trees will grow back. You have to survive, too. Who—” she felt him press his hand against her head, trying to stem the bleeding, “—who else will I argue with?”
This last sounded so plaintive Mac laughed, though the sound was more gurgle than anything else. She swallowed the blood in her mouth and worked on steadying her breathing.
Later, for some reason she couldn’t be sure how much later, other hands intruded. Other voices. “We’ve got her, sir.” “This way, please.” “Watch her head.” Mac blinked and tried to focus, then gave up as the effort sent her stomach lurching toward her throat again. She was picked up—must have missed the landing, Em—and carried a short distance. Someone, or someones—lost count of the hands, Em, wouldn’t do on the dance floor—put her on a firm flat surface that spun in slow, sickening circles—or we’re crashing, Em—and it began to move as well.
The last thing Mac remembered clearly was Oversight’s familiar voice. But it wasn’t complaining about clumsy grad students or research proposals, or berating her about the fine print of a report.
It was shouting furiously: “Who’s in charge here?” Then: “Stop! Where are you taking her? I demand to speak to someone in authority!”
She wished she could tell him what a bad idea that was.
- 11 -
ARRIVAL AND ADJUSTMENT
ONCE CONVINCED she was awake and not dreaming—an uncomfortably full bladder always added that firm dose of reality—Mac listened before she opened her eyes, trying to gain a sense of where she was before admitting to being there. It worked in novels. But this? Waves against rocks. A shorebird?
She couldn’t be home again. Could she?
Mac peeked through her eyelashes. Bright enough for sunlight, or someone wanted her awake. Nothing for it. She had to open her eyes. So much, Em, for peace.
All that happened was being able to see the room around her. No sudden assault of words or people poking at her. No pain or nausea either. Mac sighed with relief and took a better look, turning her head cautiously on what felt like heated jelly.
The ocean sounds were coming through a pair of French doors, trimmed in white and ajar to frame a picture-perfect view of water, sky, and tumbled cloud. There was a terrace just outside the doors, complete with a table set with sun-touched flowers and chairs cushioned to match.
Mac investigated the strange pillow with one hand. Not fabric but something almost organic. Soft and soothing, it caressed the skin of her cheek as she rolled her head to look the other way, yet fully supported her shoulders and neck.
On the opposite wall, the room had a second pair of French doors, these closed and their windows frosted in intricate patterns as if to grant privacy. To the left was an arch into another, wider room, also, from what Mac could see, white. Between arch and doors stood a pedestal topped by a vase filled with pale, nodding roses.
On the other side of the arch, however, was a large lump of what appeared the same white jellylike substance as Mac’s pillow, shaped something like a chair. In its midst, curled into a ball of yellow rainsuit, slept Charles Mudge III.
Now there was an unexpected development.
Careful to move quietly, Mac sat up and put her legs over the side of what was an elegant, if unusual bed. Her pillow was part of the mattress, the mattress itself having a pouch on top she’d mistaken for being between satin sheets. She stroked the surface, admiring the lustrous feel.
Her artificial hand still lacked a ring finger, but the rest of her, Mac discovered, had been washed and dressed in a long, sleeveless gown, again white, which might have been made from the same stuff as the bed. Light and incredibly comfortable, the fabric was generating warmth along her shoulders and upper back, as if detecting the small ache she felt there.
Speaking of aches. Mac decided ag
ainst exploring her head wound by feel, and stood, cautiously, in search of the washroom.
The floor was another delight. She glanced down, startled to find cool sand—or its counterpart—oozing between her toes. She didn’t need to tiptoe to move silently past Mudge.
The area beyond the arch resembled a sitting room from a Human home, in that it held four more of the large lump-chairs, gathered in the center around a low, rectangular table. But the table? Mac walked over to it, going to her knees in the sand to have a better look. It was as if a slice of the undersea world had been transported here. The effect was so real, with no signs of a boundary between water and air, that she hesitated to touch it. Finally, she did, feeling a hard slickness under her fingertips her eyes insisted wasn’t there.
It didn’t fool the school of bright coral fish who swam to investigate her fingers. They stopped just short, then flashed as one in a tight turn, swimming into the protecting fronds of an anemone. The depth—she could see an improbable three, perhaps four meters down, as if the table went through the floor and sunlight followed, yet her hands told her the table ended above the sand, sitting on six round feet.
“You’re coming home with me,” Mac promised the table.
One wall of the sitting room was window, looking to sea. The rest were unornamented, finished in plain white, as if designed to urge the eye outward. She dug her toes in the sand, seeing no footprints but hers. Designed by whom?
The washroom itself was through a door on the far wall. It featured reassuringly Human plumbing, with water, as well as a tall s-shaped curl of perfectly reflective material surrounding a similarly shaped podium. The function was obvious, but Mac felt painfully self-conscious climbing into the elaborate thing just to check her head.
“Could have been worse, Em,” she decided. A wide swathe of hair above her left ear had been replaced by a kind of bandaging she’d never seen before. Similar to her skin, but with a bubbled texture. She could touch it, even put pressure on it, without pain.
Mac tried to coax a couple of curls to lie over the gap. They sprang back to their original position as if insulted. Hair could be so opinionated.
She considered the rest, looking over her shoulder. The gown, simple as it was, was more elegant than anything she’d worn in years, clinging, as the expression went, in all the right places. To Emily’s despair, Mac usually went for functional and clean. Or The Suit.
That didn’t mean she was unaware of the potential of other types of clothing. Or that she didn’t approve of what she saw at the moment.
Would he?
Interesting if totally unhelpful question. Mac grinned at the serious look she caught on her own face. “It’s only a nightgown,” she reminded herself.
Her eyes followed the exposed line of shoulder and upper arm to where flesh ended in pale blue, like the porcelain of a doll.
If she’d wanted to hide it, she’d have gone for the cosmetic skin, not this strong and useful material. It had saved her life. Mac traced the marks gouged into the wrist and back of the hand with her fingers, grateful and troubled at the same time.
“Does it cause pain?”
It was quicker to glance in the mirror than whirl to find the source of the soft-voiced question. Mac found herself looking into a face beside her own, a face that was a study in bone and angle, as aesthetic as the rooms. She had no doubt she was looking at their creator—or rightful inhabitant. “No,” she answered and turned. “Hello. I’m Mackenzie Connor.”
Sinzi. There could be no mistaking a member of the first sentient alien species to make contact with humanity. Any child would recognize those upswept shoulders, rising higher than the top of the head; every history book held images of their tall, straight forms, standing like sapling trees among smaller, rounder Humans. And every biology text rapturously described those two great complex eyes, comprised of a pair for each individual consciousness within the body, and speculated on the psychology of being many in one. For the Sinzi were the only group mind yet encountered.
Mac stepped down from the podium. The Sinzi courteously bent her long neck, for the graceful shape of the shoulders was feminine, to keep their eyes at the same level. Mac could see herself in a dozen topaz reflections. Six minds. Not unusual, but as far as she knew more than average. “We know who you are, Dr. Connor, and are enriched by your presence.”
She couldn’t remember if a Sinzi referred to him or herself in the plural, or if “we” meant more nearby. Must read more, Mac promised herself. “Thank you. I appreciate the care . . .” she hesitated. What was Sinzi protocol? All Mac could remember at the moment was that they were polite. But one species’ “polite” was another’s “insult.” And among the species of the IU, the Sinzi were the next best thing to royalty.
The Sinzi made a gracious gesture with her fingertips. Humans had originally mistaken the fingers for tentacles, apparently amusing the Sinzi representative. The aliens had true hands anatomically more similar to those of whales or bats, than primates. Their arms had been reduced to a series of joints within the upper shoulder complex, fingers beginning at that point and extending below the waist. Each of the three fingers per “hand” was the diameter of a human thumb, with such strong bones and joints that they appeared skeletal rather than flesh. The nail at the fingertip was thick and functional.
Far from elongated bony claws, the fingers were sleek and flexible, capable of subtle moments of extraordinary precision. This Sinzi had coated the upper third of her fingers with delicate rings of silver metal, sparking light each time a joint flexed. She wore a shift identical to Mac’s, simple and as white as her skin. On her curve-less body, it fell in straight pleats to the floor, brushing the sand and the tops of her long toes, four of which pointed forward and two behind, to act as heels.
“You may call me Anchen, Dr. Connor,” the Sinzi said. “Me” answered the pronoun question, Mac thought, fascinated as Anchen turned her head as though to bring particular eyes into closer focus on her. “While your injuries are not serious, I would recommend you spend the next period of time resting and regaining your strength. There was significant blood loss. Please stay here until you feel able to join your fellows. No one expects otherwise.”
“Mac, please. My fellows? I don’t understand.”
“The Gathering, Mac.”
The Gathering? They’d been transported by agents from the Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs; she’d swear to it. The same people who hadn’t wanted her to receive that invitation, but . . . Nik had implied accepting would put her under IU jurisdiction, not Human.
Yet Humans had brought her here. Okay. Where, thought Mac a little desperately, was here?
“Anchen, where am I? What is this place? Am I on Earth?”
The thin-lipped Sinzi mouth was triangular, but quite flexible. Anchen demonstrated that by forming a pleasant, albeit it toothless, smile. “My apologies, Mac. I realize the Gathering is being held secretly, for security, but I thought you knew. These are part of my apartments within the residence wing of the Interspecies Union Consular Complex. Definitely on Earth. New Zealand, southern hemisphere, to be precise. It is the consulate’s honor to host the delegates who gather to share their knowledge of the Dhryn.”
Mac frowned. “Humans brought me here. Didn’t they?”
“Yes, of course. The consulate has always relied upon your government for transportation. Any movement of non-Humans on Earth continues to attract attention, Mac, and your species has a limitless curiosity under normal circumstances. I’m sure any unpredicted traffic over your world would be noticed, given the tensions of the times.” An understatement.
Well, she was into it now. Feeling her way around the concept, Mac said, “What do I do in this Gathering? Has it started? Where do I go?”
“The Gathering has been underway for some time, Mac, but we continue to add new delegates such as yourself. Please, rest. You will have full access to all information and sessions which have taken place over the past weeks, and meet the
others as soon as you are fit.”
“I’m fit now, Anchen.” Beyond eager, Mac came within a breath of asking for access to reading material, then changed her mind. Learned the hard way, Em. Check the fine print. “Anchen, I’ll need my things, from Norcoast. And to contact my family and friends—let them know I’m all right.” Even if she couldn’t tell the whole truth. In Mac’s firm opinion, one mysterious disappearance was enough for a lifetime.
“I will look into appropriate arrangements.” It wasn’t a resounding yes, but it wasn’t no either. And no one would miss her for a couple of weeks, anyway, Mac reminded herself. “In the meantime, I advise you to more fully recuperate,” the Sinzi bowed, a complex and graceful movement Mac didn’t even attempt to emulate. “You and the other delegates face a daunting task.”
Mac nodded. Daunting covered it.
She’d been ready to go into space, to work on some alien world.
Instead, she was in the one place in Human-settled space where Humans held no power at all. Where they were only permitted on business for the IU.
Where she was the alien.
After showing Mac how to contact consular staff with any needs, which involved nothing more difficult than pressing her hand anywhere on a wall and asking out loud, Anchen left as swiftly and silently as she’d arrived. Mac watched the sea life for a while—an admirable selection of local fauna she would have believed no more than images suspended inside the table, except for the convincing way those animals with eyes reacted to her presence. It begged the question: could they see her because they really were in the room or were they able to see her because she was an image sent to where they really were?
There was headache potential, she decided, if it wasn’t enough a weasel had tried to split hers open with his gonads . Mac grinned to herself. Which would make one of those stories to tell Emily. One day.
Migration: Species Imperative #2 Page 24