Regeneration (Czerneda)

by Julie E. Czerneda

  First things first. With one arm tight around her abused middle, and her hand shading her eyes, Mac staggered to the shower and stepped inside. Once there, she pushed her head into the jets and kept the water and soap running—first over her clothes, then over each subsequent layer as she stripped to skin. With regret, she kicked the once-lovely suit to the side.

  Offspring holes in it anyway.

  Next, she turned the room lights to minimum and used her wet clothing to mop most of the mess from the floor, slipping the sodden mass into disposal sacks. Moving at the mindless task worked some of the knots from her neck and abdomen. Though she’d feel those muscles tomorrow.

  Mac set the air refresh to maximum, crossing her fingers the reek of almost-dead biologist wouldn’t simply be pumped to some other room and noticed. Gooseflesh rose on her skin and she rooted through her bags to find something that wasn’t silk or suit.

  At the bottom of one, plain coveralls—similar to those worn by the crew. “I’ll never complain about your packing again, Two,” she promised the consular staff as she pulled the garment on. Wanting to be quite sure to remember which was which, she put the fourth ring on her left hand. Quite the collection. Mac considered putting the lamnas on a chain around her neck. But they weren’t jewelry. They weren’t an imp or mem-sheet. They were pieces of Nik, intimate and hers.

  Plus that other. She explored those memories with care, like probing a sore tooth with her tongue. And found a question.

  Had the Progenitor spoken Dhryn?

  Being unable to tell scared her. Mac rested two fingers on her lips and mouthed, “The rain at Base . . . two three four.” First in English, then Instella. Last, and with reluctance, Dhryn. Oomling Dhryn.

  The oomlings. She sank into her chair, the words in Nik’s voice blending with that perverse mix of hunger and desperate remorse until she knew, beyond doubt, one truth. The Progenitor, the future of her kind, was sacrificing the existing generations in order to survive.

  Even She would break, Mac realized. No matter this Progenitor’s desire to avoid killing others, instinct would rule before the end. And what of the other Dhryn, hiding within the transect system? “That which is Dhryn must survive,” she whispered.

  They were all running out of time.

  Their crew escort left them at the door. Norris continued to give her sidelong looks as they walked through the Annapolis Joy’s hangar deck. Finally, Mac couldn’t take it any longer. “What’s the matter?”

  “You look awful.”

  No surprise there. She felt awful. Having a Progenitor try to stuff meaning inside her head through a Sinzi device had produced a headache that continued to mock the heavy-duty painkillers she’d gulped on the way to meet him.

  Mac wanted to explain, but “Dhryn brain” was too dangerous and “simulator hangover” was petty under the circumstances. “Lunch didn’t agree with me,” she said, which was undeniably the case. The mere thought of eating . . .”

  She’d chosen to intercept Norris on his way to the Origins section. It had given her time to begin to sort through her new thoughts, and, more importantly to Mac, removed any possibility of him appearing at her quarters before they were cleaned.

  Avoiding the person sent to clean her quarters had been a bonus.

  After passing several large, promising craft, with uniformed crew bustling around them, Norris stopped by what looked to Mac like an ordinary transport lev, about the size used to ferry weekly supplies to Base. With, she noticed, dents.

  Norris opened the door and climbed in. “C’mon,” he said impatiently.

  Without committing her feet to the ramp, Mac leaned forward to look inside. Other than mismatched seats for pilot and passenger, there was nothing but recording equipment—some mounted to the walls, some loose. There was also no other person, and Norris was climbing into the pilot’s seat.

  So not always behind a desk. “You’re the pilot?”

  “Of course.” He busied himself with an alarming number of switches. Lights came on and a complex ’screen activated to hover in front of him. “It’s my ship.”

  Mac pointed toward the hangar’s launch bay. “It’s space out there.” She thought that came out nicely matter-of-fact, but he stopped what he was doing to gaze down his nose at her.

  “We have a slim margin of opportunity, Dr. Connor. If you don’t feel capable of accompanying me, stay here.”

  She rested her hand on the side of the lev in apology. “It seems a little small.”

  “To maneuver around obstacles.” His hand caressed the console. “Are you coming or not?”

  He didn’t appear suicidal, she told herself. As reassurance, it did nothing to steady her nerves, but Mac climbed up the ramp and took her seat, tossing her pack underneath. “Of course.”

  Norris closed the door behind her. As he continued his final checks and preparations, Mac glanced around.

  This “lev” was different from those that moved through air. For one thing, the roof wasn’t retractable. Brilliant, she scoffed at herself. For another, there were no windows. It was really like being inside a box.

  She could handle being in a moving box. She’d done it before.

  She concentrated on relaxing in the passenger seat, leaning back with her eyes closed. The position—or the painkillers—began to make progress on her headache. After a few minutes, it faded into a sullen throb.

  The craft lurched forward. The tow to launch.

  She didn’t bother watching Norris deal with that either. Her stomach gave a gentle gurgle, the kind that meant it was willing to try something when she was. Progress.

  The lurching ended in sudden smoothness, then Norris gave a satisfied, “There we are. Take a look, Dr. Connor.”

  Mac opened her eyes. She didn’t scream, but the sound that did come out of her mouth before she closed it had a good deal in common with that made by an offended mouse.

  She was in space. Without a ship!

  Hands tight on the armrests, Mac took a deep breath. Something wasn’t right. She was getting air.

  But the roof and walls she’d found so comforting had become transparent. Mac glanced down and looked up again quickly. So had the floor.

  Norris’ little craft had transformed into a bubble containing themselves, his packed equipment, and what bits of console he needed to consult. Interior lighting was reduced to that provided by his ’screen.

  “Not a box,” she said rather glibly.

  “Warn me if you’re going to be sick. I’ve bags.”

  She had nothing left.

  Mac began to take in what was around them, twisting her head to see more. “I’m fine.”

  They weren’t alone. Dwarfing the stars, Myriam’s sun, and the world itself were ships. A mixed school, thought Mac, trying to find some frame of reference.

  From their perspective, the Annapolis Joy lay below. The ship resembled a lacework coral, rounder buds held within a network of thick lines, but more random and three-dimensional than creatures bound by tropisms to sun and gravity and wave. If Mac hadn’t known something of the Joy’s inner dimensions, she’d have judged the ship fragile. Lights and reflections teased her complex shape from the darkness beyond and revealed other shapes—probably shuttles—moving over her surface like small crabs. Others moved farther away, difficult to follow at this range, but she spotted one set of lights that seemed to parallel their course. “Who’s that?”

  “Your escort,” he stated. “The captain insisted.”

  She liked the captain.

  To either side and—Mac looked up—above were other much larger ships. While she mentally tagged them as eel, octopus, grouper, sea cucumber, and so on, Norris abruptly noticed her interest and began to spout numbers and model years as if he’d checked a list before coming out. Probably had, she thought.

  “Which is the Trisulian?” she interrupted.

  He called up something on his ’screen, the changing glow doing unfortunate things to his long nose. “Nadir to the Joy—p
lus thirteen or thereabouts.”

  “Point,” she suggested.

  Norris got up and came to stand behind her right shoulder. He leaned down so their cheeks almost touched, then gave a huff of satisfaction that caught in Mac’s hair. “That,” he said, his arm reaching out, finger ending at a dim shape. “We’ll get a better look when we’re at the derelict.”

  He sat again. Mac stared into the darkness. “Do they see us?”

  “I hope so. Otherwise, they’ll believe we’re violating our approved flight path to Beta.”

  “Beta?” She looked at him quizzically. “I thought we were doing a pass over the Uosanah.”

  Norris worked some controls before answering. When he did, his voice was subdued. “I prefer not to use real names for the dead.”

  Mac, who affectionately nicknamed turkeys before shoving them in the oven, decided not to comment. “How close is the Trisulian ship to Beta?”

  “Close as it gets without being docked. They towed her here.”

  Lovely. “How—”

  “Dr. Connor,” Norris interrupted, sounding rather exasperated. “I’ve preparations to make that will take every minute before arriving at our destination. If you could please be quiet until then?”

  Mac grinned. “Sure.”

  She leaned back and gazed out at a vista she’d never imagined seeing for herself. Dozens of ships, from as many or more species, hovering in space like a cloud of plankton. She’d have to coexist with Norris until Mudge could take a ride. Not to mention get the specs from the engineer. Base could use something like this.

  “I need music,” Norris muttered, jabbing his finger in the workscreen’s upper quadrant.

  Mac nodded, though he hadn’t asked, ready to listen and relax.

  Sound blared through the little ship and she winced. “What’s that?”

  “An accordion. From my personal collection. You don’t hear music like this anymore.” Norris began whistling along, slightly off-key. Whistling to . . . Mac closed her eyes and shook her head.

  As she’d feared.

  It was a polka.

  Surrounded by vacuum, trapped in a bubble with an engineer who collected polkas. On cue, her headache throbbed anew.

  A ride for Mudge in this thing was not, she vowed, worth this.

  Specs for the bubble lev might be.

  If it was a very short trip.

  “Dr. Connor!”

  “Wasn’t asleep,” Mac grumbled, opening her eyes. Not for long, anyway. The inside and outside of her head were blissfully quiet. Rubbing absently at the lingering ache at the back of her neck, she straightened and looked around. Beside her loomed not so much a shape but an absence of anything but darkness. “Beta?” she guessed.

  “That’s the Trisulian battle cruiser.” Norris pointed downward. “There’s our target.” He stood and went into the back. “I’ll show you.”

  Light flooded the floor, and Mac moved her feet to get a better look. The Beta—Uosanah—gleamed bronze against velvet where Norris had illuminated it. Unlike the Joy, she appeared capable of entering an atmosphere, if sleek curves and a lack of external protrusions counted.

  Norris resumed his seat. “We’ll head for her belly.”

  The bubble rolled to reorient with the derelict overhead, then plunged toward it. Mac held her breath, but her stomach didn’t react. At the instant a crash became inevitable, the bubble leveled out to travel forward along the Dhryn ship. She sent a searing look at Norris, but he was too intent on flashing displays to notice an irate passenger. Probably never had one before.

  The belly of the Uosanah was studded with what looked like cranes and other handling equipment. So much for her attempt to decipher ship design, Mac thought, wondering if these were to take in orbital boxes, such as Earth exchanged with her way stations.

  Her wonder turned to concern when Norris immediately took them into that maze of metal. Their lights flashed against girders and wires and giant hollowed plates. Too close for comfort. Mac held onto her armrests, planning exactly what to tell Norris when it was safe to distract him. From his look of concentration, he was hunting something.

  He directed the bubble deeper and deeper until the irregular machinery closed around them like a trap. About to protest, distraction or not, Mac noticed their pace slowing and closed her mouth.

  Just in time. The lights washed over what lay directly ahead. A series of large round doors. Closed doors.

  Doors Norris continued to approach, although now with caution.

  Enough was enough. “What are you doing?” Mac demanded.

  “I have to concentrate.” One particular door began to loom. Norris’ fingers sped across the console.

  The door filled the front view, reflecting so much light Mac squinted as she half rose from her seat. “Norris!”

  “Hush.”

  Like a yawning mouth, the door slid open, the lights from their craft plunging within to reveal a launch bay almost identical to the one they’d left.

  Of course. Standard technologies, Mac thought inanely. Trust the IU.

  Trust Norris? Only as far as the ride home. “Nice trick, opening that,” she said as calmly as possible.

  He swung his head to look at her. The determination in it froze her in place. “Here’s a better one, Dr. Connor.” He did something to the controls.

  And the bubble leaped forward to enter the bay.

  Almost instantly, the great door closed behind it and the little ship lurched. Mac recognized the motion. They were being towed into the hangar.

  Inside the dead Dhryn ship.

  “This is why you brought me along,” Mac said, furious with herself. It beat being terrified at what now held them. “You never intended to just fly by.”

  “You said it yourself, Dr. Connor.” Norris seemed short of breath. “ ‘First ready, first out the door.’ ”

  “That didn’t mean ignoring protocols! What about our escort? What about the Trisulians?” She lowered her voice from full shout; it didn’t lose its hard edge. “You’ll never be allowed on one of these ships again.”

  “There was no guarantee I’d be allowed at all. Don’t you see? This is my one chance. To show I can contribute. That Humans should be involved.” He surged from his seat and went to an instrument apparently suspended in midair near where the door should be. “Don’t worry, Dr. Connor. Didn’t you see the material lining the bay? It’s the Dhryn stealth cloth. Can’t see us here. Couldn’t see us on approach either. I put us in on Beta’s far side.” Now he looked at her, pale yet defiant. “I’ve set a buoy to produce a false image of us crisscrossing the surface. Our flight plan gives us three hours’ minimum before the Joy notices. More than enough time to discover what happened to this ship and the others. There.”

  Before Mac could do more than cry out in reflex, the lev regained its walls—and an open door.

  The cold smell of death flooded in.

  “Air’s breathable,” Norris promised, gathering up bags which he slung over both shoulders. “Bit dry.”

  Mac wrinkled her nose. “Bit rotten,” she amended. Normally, she appreciated the smell for what it signified. The annual carpet of dead and dying salmon, aswarm with feasting eagles, gulls, and bears. Waters enriched for the generation to come. Here and now, on this ship?

  “I’m guessing the Dhryn never left.”

  Norris had his back to her. “Ships don’t die empty, Dr. Connor.” Supremely nonchalant, except she could see his hands shaking as he snugged a belt around his waist, how they fumbled to clip tools to it, dropping one. “Are you ready?”

  She couldn’t let him go alone, Mac realized, though sorely tempted. For all his bold talk, he knew what he’d done. His career was over if this gamble didn’t pay off. If he didn’t incite a war first. “Remind me to introduce you to Emily Mamani, if we get out of this,” she growled.

  Mac pulled her pack from under her seat and fitted it on her back. “First I want your promise to get us out of here before the Trisulians—
or anyone else—come looking.”

  “Of course. I do know what I’m doing, Dr. Connor. You read the labels; I’ll do the rest. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Save her from theorists loose in the field. “Three hours,” Mac repeated, making a show of checking the time.

  The hangar was improbably normal. Lights on standby raised to daytime levels as they left Norris’ ship, a little brighter than Human norm, but Dhryn liked it that way. Normal, but too quiet, in Mac’s opinion. The Joy’s had been full of moving people and machines, rang with voices and mutters and vibrations. Uosanah’s service shuttles sat silent and still.

  Norris began taking scans of everything in sight, as if no one had ever seen a freighter’s hangar deck before. She was no starship engineer, but Mac was reasonably sure this wasn’t going to provide any answers as to what happened to the colony Dhryn in Haven. She walked ahead, hoping to lead by example, when she noticed the pool of congealed blue under the second shuttle in line.

  “Norris!” she called, squatting to look underneath.

  Three arms hung down, their ragged ends evidently the original source of the blood pool. Mac frowned and moved closer. Grathnu severed a limb cleanly. There’d been no massive blood loss when Brymn had given his to the Progenitor. These—She pulled out her imp and poked the nearest arm out of the shadows. “Wasn’t grathnu,” she pronounced, studying the dried shreds of skin, flesh, and bone. “What do you make of this, Norris?”

  Careful to avoid the pool, Norris went on his knees, one hand over his nose. “I don’t know what grath—whatever is. But he must have been desperate to squeeze in there. This—” he pointed to the underside of the shuttle, through which Mac glimpsed portions of blue skin and brown fabric, “—is part of the tow mechanism. If anyone had tried to launch her, he’d have been torn apart.”

  Mac straightened and glanced around. All quiet, all peaceful. All empty. “So he wasn’t trying to leave the ship.”

  “Or he tried,” the engineer disagreed, climbing to his feet, “but didn’t have time to climb into the shuttle before having to hide.”