Migration: Species Imperative #2

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “What do you want us to do?” This from Sing-li.

  Mac looked to Mudge. “You have the room assignments for the members of the team, right?” He nodded. “Wake everyone up. Start with Lyle Kanaci—he can help with the rest. We have work to do.”

  A familiar scowl. “And where will you be?”

  “I’ll join you as soon as I can,” Mac promised. “We’ll wake up Fourteen on the way—I want to talk to him first.” She turned to Sing-li. “We should—”

  “I don’t think so,” interrupted Mudge, giving the larger, younger man a disdainful look. “You need protection. I should go with you.”

  Snooping was one thing; risking himself was another. “You’re a fearsome administrator, Oversight,” she said gratefully but firmly. “Unusually deft with a paddle, I’ll grant you. But I’d better stick with the professional with the large weapon, don’t you think?”

  He harrumphed. “A P917-multiphasic pulse pistol—pardon, P915, I’d thought it was the newer model—is no substitute for experience.”

  Sing-li raised his eyebrow again, but didn’t say anything; Mac, less tactful, grinned. “Experience?” He had to be kidding.

  Mudge put on outraged dignity the way anyone else put on a coat. “Experience with you, Norcoast. And your propensity for dashing off on a whim to find trouble.”

  “I do not—” Mac reconsidered. “I don’t try to find trouble,” she temporized.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Mudge,” Sing-li reassured him. “I lived with her at Base for six months. We all know the signs.”

  Mac’s head snapped around. “What signs? Signs of wh—” She stopped, startled.

  What was that?

  Mac held up her hand for silence, listening, her mouth dry. There. She lunged forward and swept the covering from the table.

  Clear water and fish exploded into a writhing mass of sediments and broken coral, as whatever had been closest to the glass fled into the depths.

  Sing-li had surged to his feet with her and now stood, his pistol drawn and ready, although somewhat nonplussed to be aiming it at a piece of furniture. Mudge, who’d managed to jump right over his jelly-chair, peered over the top of its dubious shelter. “What—what was that?” he gasped.

  Heart still hammering in her ears, Mac said fiercely: “That, my dear Oversight, is what happens when guesswork meets evidence. The Ro.” Were they aquatic? she caught herself wondering for the first time. Did they rejoice in the seawater tank, or was the liquid inimical to them? Did they prefer the same mixture of gases she breathed?

  What could you breathe in no-space?

  You know, Emily, Mac thought grimly. She’d like to believe her friend would answer questions. She’d also like to be standing beside the Tannu River right now.

  The probability of either was the same.

  “There are tables like this everywhere,” began Sing-li, worry creasing his forehead. “Can the Ro exit into rooms through them?”

  Staring at the table, Mac resisted the impulse to duck behind her own chair. “Let’s not wait and find out. Can you reach Nik, discreetly, without using the consulate’s system?”

  “Who’s Nik? Mudge demanded. Mac silenced him with a look.

  “Sure.” Sing-li pulled out something like an imp. “What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Have him meet us in the Origins Room as soon as he can.” She looked from Mudge to Sing-li. “Let’s move, gentlemen.”

  At this hour, the residential corridors of the IU consulate were deserted, lights dimmed to night levels, everyone asleep or at least quiet. Mac was reminded of the times Emily had talked her into staying out late, late enough they’d have to sneak back into the Pods to avoid waking other researchers. Of course, then, the consequence of discovery had been a continuation of festivities till dawn in someone’s quarters, with Mac doing her best to excuse herself and Emily all for it.

  Tonight, she was with Sing-li, who managed to turn walking into something ominous and silent. Tonight, Emily was the one person Mac didn’t want to encounter, hard as that was to admit.

  Tonight, dawn wasn’t a sure thing.

  Technically, Fourteen’s quarters were the floor above hers, but the Sinzi’s ramplike corridor wound its way from level to level steeply here, making it faster to walk than take the lift. Mac found herself moving quicker as well, stretching her strides to match Sing-li’s longer legs, almost breaking into a run.

  Running out of time, she fussed to herself and hoped Fourteen wasn’t a sound sleeper.

  “Here,” Sing-li said quietly, stopping in front of the next set of double doors. “We shouldn’t wake the neighbors.”

  “Wait a moment.” Mac leaned her head against the door. “He snores,” she explained. “Loudly.” Nothing. She reached for the door handle. The consulate didn’t lock doors, presumably to allow staff discreet access at any time. Or to encourage clandestine activity? Mac thought inanely. Who knew what went on after-hours here?

  A large hand got to the handle first and the Ministry agent gave her a gentle nudge to one side with his shoulder. “My job,” he informed her.

  “Go ahead,” she agreed, but stayed close by.

  Sing-li opened the door. No lights, as expected. “Fourteen?” Mac called out as they stepped inside.

  Nothing.

  “Something’s wrong,” her companion said abruptly. At that instant Mac realized her feet weren’t walking on sand, but through jelly. “Stay back.”

  Sing-li hit the lights.

  The room before them was in ruins. The Sinzi’s jelly furnishings, both bed and chair, were slashed apart, their contents—light blue, Mac observed numbly—staining the sand. Glistening trails of slime crisscrossed everywhere she looked: walls, ceiling, and floor. Where the slime touched sand, that material was already hardening into a crust.

  “Fourteen!” Mac shouted, bolting for the other room.

  Sing-li made a grab for her but missed. “Mac! Wait!” He pounded after her through the arch, cursing under his breath, only catching up when she staggered to a stop before a pile of ripped clothing.

  “It isn’t—him,” she managed to say. No body. Just the pile beside the table, the only intact furnishing left in the Myg’s quarters. Sing-li, weapon drawn, quickly checked the closet and washroom, then came back to her, shaking his head. “The terrace,” she whispered, and he went into the other room, coming back a moment later.

  “Clear,” he told her. “No evidence of a struggle—no blood.”

  “That doesn’t mean they didn’t take him,” she ground out. Just then, something about the pile of clothing caught Mac’s eye. It seemed different, somehow.

  “Sing-li,” she hissed as she bent and teased the top layer free, wincing at the cold stickiness of slime on her fingers. Most of the material was Fourteen’s fine leather, ripped to ribbons, every edge jagged as if the damage had been caused by serrated knives.

  Or teeth.

  The pile beneath shifted. Just a bit, but enough to make Mac drop to her knees and pull more urgently at the mass. Sing-li, muttering various dark things under his breath, loomed at her shoulder, weapon ready.

  The last lump of slime-coated leather came free in her hands, as much because what was beneath was digging itself out of the sand as Mac’s tugging. A faint muffled coo, then two limpid eyes stared up at her, blinking grains from their eyelashes.

  A baby Myg? “Come here,” Mac urged gently, carefully helping the tiny creature from its hiding place. “Shhhh. It’s okay.”

  With a pounce that would have done a cat proud—or an aroused male Trisulian—the baby attached itself to the front of her jacket, doing its utmost to shiver its way through the warm skin of Mac’s throat. She cradled it there with one hand as she got to her feet.

  “I’ve a pretty good idea where Fourteen might be,” Mac announced. “Let’s go.”

  “We have to report this.” At the shake of her head, he protested: “Mac!”

  “Raising an alarm—likely too late, I might a
dd—will only stop us from getting to the Origins Room. I have to get there, Sing-li. I have to work with my team.” Mac looked at the too-familiar damage. “Ro don’t tend to stick around.”

  He wasn’t happy, but didn’t argue.

  They made their way to Unensela’s quarters, Sing-li having contacted Mudge for the location within the building. He’d signed off the com link to frown worriedly at Mac. “Mr. Mudge says there was no answer from her room either. Do you think the Ro—?”

  Mac, busy trying to convince a certain small and persistent Myg that a Human female was physically incapable of offering it a snack, merely grunted: “Doubt it.” Unensela’s quarters were on the uppermost residential floor. This time, they took the lift, Sing-li stepping out first to sweep the corridor with a glance. After a long second, he waved at her to follow. Mac didn’t argue, too busy listening. She knew the sounds of the Ro, heard their scurry . . . spit pop! in her dreams.

  “Clear,” he said, then frowned. “What’s that noise?”

  “That noise” being a series of loud squeals that incited the Myg baby to squirm up to Mac’s shoulder, chattering with excitement, Mac didn’t feel particularly worried. “I think we’ve found out why Unensela isn’t answering her com,” she said.

  A knock on the door did no better—the squealing having grown too loud anyway. The two Humans exchanged glances. “I don’t know if we should just walk in, Mac.”

  “The Ro?” she reminded him.

  “Good point.” He pushed open the door . . . . . . giving Mac perfect line of sight on a pair of madly vibrating paisley shorts, an unexpected alignment of body parts, and a wildly squealing female Myg who, upon spotting new arrivals, freed an arm to wave them inside with every appearance of sincerity.

  Clandestine meetings indeed. At least his grandsires would be pleased.

  As for that smell . . .

  “Let’s give them a moment,” Mac suggested, stepping back into the corridor.

  Sing-li didn’t argue with that either.

  Fourteen had exchanged his formal wig for his Little Misty Lake General Store hat, jauntily dipped over one ear. Mac was fascinated to see that his forked tongue, white until now, was engorged and distinctly pink. No external genitalia indeed, she speculated.

  A happy Myg. Or he would have been, if it hadn’t been for her news. “Whaddyou mean, dey’ve sdarded sending da signal?” The tongue was causing him problems.

  “Idiot,” this from Unensela, who seemed unaffected by anything other than containing the offspring who kept trying to jump to Mac. She didn’t blame it. Neither adult Myg had evinced concern about the child having narrowly escaped the Ro; after his initial trauma at missing the successful signal, Fourteen had worried more about his clothes.

  Probably why he’d so glibly offered her his firstborn, had he had one, Mac recalled, struggling with this variation on parental behavior. “I suppose now you’ll want to celebrate,” Unensela continued. She leaned confidingly toward Mac, necessitating another grab at the offspring. “I was consoling him on his failure,” she explained. “Males. Any excuse.”

  Sing-li made a choked noise; Mac didn’t bother turning around. “Could we focus on the problem at hand, please?” she asked both Mygs. “And walk a little faster?”

  Fourteen put a protective arm around his partner, avoiding the offspring climbing on her shoulders. “Of course she can’t,” he claimed, both expression and tone highly smug. “Not yet.”

  Unensela squealed; Sing-li smothered another laugh.

  Was she the only one intent on saving the planet? Mac began to wonder about their collective sanity.

  When they reached the lifts, she drew Fourteen aside, scowling at his somewhat theatrical sigh at leaving Unensela’s side. “I need you to do something for me, Fourteen,” she told him, keeping her voice low. Not that she knew the auditory acuity of a Myg, she realized belatedly.

  Abruptly serious, his tiny eyes riveted on her. “You haf my allegiance, Mac. You know dat.”

  And she was about to test it—severely. Mac bit her lower lip, then took him by the arm and walked him a few more steps away from where the others waited. Probably an unnecessary caution. The offspring, having discovered Sing-li’s armor made interesting noises, were keeping both Human and their mother preoccupied. But she’d rather not share this.

  “I want you in the signal room in the Atrium—yes, I know what’s in the basement,” she said at his attempt to look surprised. “Where do you think I’ve been?” Mac firmed her voice. “They’re monitoring for a response from the Ro. I need to know when they get it, Fourteen. What it says. This isn’t something the Sinzi-ra would approve,” she warned.

  “I will be your eyes and ears, Mac,” he promised, puffing out his chest. “If anything happens, I’ll send a message to your imp. I can do it so none are the wiser, even our omniscient host.” The tongue only tripped him on “omniscient,” the word coming out more like “omblifflivy,” but Mac understood.

  She gave a grateful nod, trusting he could read the gesture. “There’s one other thing, Fourteen. This won’t be as easy to hide. I want you to find a way to disrupt the outgoing signal—to do it if I say so, without question.”

  His chest collapsed in a quiet moan and the Myg put his hands over his eyes. She grabbed his wrists and pulled his arms down again, quickly but gently, hoping Unensela hadn’t noticed the despairing gesture. The smell she couldn’t help. “The Ro are to save us, Mac,” he protested, unhappy but quiet in her hold. “This is not an act of strobis. I cannot.”

  “And if they are not saviors, Fourteen? What then? They’ve been spying inside the consulate. Who knows what they intended to do with you!”

  “Idiot. I’m the only one genius enough to make progress with their code. They could have been trying to communicate with me.”

  Save her from wishful academics, regardless of species. “For that same reason, Fourteen, they could have wanted you dead.” She held his eyes with hers. “Just go there, please. Keep an eye on things. Keep me informed. And, for all our sakes, have a plan in mind. I’ve a feeling whatever choice you have to make will be clear—I only hope you have time to make it.”

  Fourteen nodded, then reached out and tapped her nose. “And I hope to embarrass you about this for many years to come, Mac.”

  So did she, Mac thought, watching the lift doors close behind Fourteen.

  So did she.

  Night elsewhere, but on the main floor the illumination was daylight normal. Knowing the ways of researchers, Mac had assumed they wouldn’t be the only ones awake in the dead of morning. She’d counted on it, in fact.

  Sure enough, each of the six consular staff they encountered was towing a cart of coffee and pastries, including one outside the Origins Room. “Good evening, Dr. Connor,” he said without a blink. “We noticed activity in your room and anticipated your group would also require refreshments. Was this correct?”

  “Perfect,” she said a little too warmly. Should pacify the ones who don’t wake well, she thought, following the staff through the door. Sing-li, on her signal, came with her.

  A series of high-pitched squeals announced them as they entered. Unensela’s offspring left her, bounding across the floor to intercept the cart, only the staff’s quick move to lift the tray beyond their reach saving the pastries. Just as well, Mac thought. The female Myg hadn’t been pleased to see Fourteen sent on a mission of his own—although it seemed her pique was more because she didn’t have a secret mission, than any worry about risk to him. Implying, decided Mac, a certain lack of personal commitment in more Myg relationships than parenting.

  Mudge hurried up, relief on his face. “Everyone’s here, Norcoast.”

  Except Nik, she thought, having swept the crowd with a look, but didn’t say it aloud. “Good work.”

  “Where’s Fourteen?”

  “He’s busy elsewhere—”

  “What’s going on?” Like most here, Lyle hadn’t wasted time to do more than throw on clothes. His
sparse hair stood on end and his eyes were bloodshot.

  Mac pitched her voice to his ears only. “We’re going to prove the value of your work once and for all. Or look like blithering idiots. Game?”

  His lips stretched in a bitter grin. “Game.”

  “Give us a moment first. Sing-li?”

  He followed Mac to a quiet part of the room, not that there were many options. When they stopped, he gave her a troubled look. “Mac, I have to raise the alarm.”

  “I know. One last thing before you do.” She put her hand on his armor-coated chest, irrelevantly noticing tiny Myg prints marring its gleam. “I want the rest of you here.”

  He took a look around the room, then frowned at her. “This room isn’t defensible, Mac, if that’s what you’re thinking. Those windows? The door’s a joke. And who knows what the Sinzi buried in the walls? Specs have this place capable of morphing into a fortress—from the outside, at least.”

  She shook her head impatiently through all of it. “I want them here—you, too—in case Nik needs you.”

  “For what?” Low and worried. “Mac, what are you planning now?”

  “See the signs, do you?” she said, trying to keep it light.

  “Mac.” A growl.

  “Nik might have to retrieve our guest from the basement. Fast.”

  That earned a grim look. “You might be sent home if you’re wrong, Mac. Nik—the rest of us—we won’t be that lucky. Not if we disobey the Sinzi-ra and the Ministry. That’s treason.”