Regeneration (Czerneda)

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “Thanks, Lyle.” She was touched. They’d come a long way. “You’d better go,” she added, understanding why his eyes kept flicking to the loading platform. Heading to the field.

  She could feel the pull herself.

  He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Will do. And you behave.” Others came up even as Lyle left, swamping Mac with handshakes and kisses and hugs. The offspring clung to her, wide-eyed and excited, patting anyone who came close enough with their paws. Their claws they kept firmly planted in her and Mac began to worry if she’d get them off when the time came.

  Out the corner of her eye, she could see Mudge doing his utmost to fend off such overt affection, nodding gravely to each well-wisher before they came too close and holding his pair of offspring to his chest like a shield.

  The initial crush worked its way past; everyone was as anxious as Lyle to get on board. Maybe they thought the captain would change his mind. Mirabelle, having waited until now, came up and gave Mac a hug. “ ’Bye, Mac.”

  Mac shook her head. “Archaeologists,” she complained. “I might see you tomorrow, you know.”

  The other woman didn’t smile. “And you might not. Don’t underestimate how we feel about you. We’ve been through so much together, Mac, and you’ve done—well, you’ve done more for us than we could say.”

  Mac scrunched her face. “I seem to remember making you work all hours on crazy questions.”

  Mirabelle laughed but there was a suspicious brightness to her eyes. “Crazy questions that made us—and our work—significant. Whatever we’ve accomplished to help all of us survive, Mac, we did through you. And we won’t forget that.”

  Speechless, Mac watched the woman walk away. Mudge came over. “Glad to see they recognize your contribution, Norcoast,” he said quietly.

  She snorted, shifting offspring. “They need to get back to work. We all—” Mac stopped to pull off the one gumming her chin. “Where’s Unensela?” She hadn’t spotted the Myg during the ceremony or good-byes. “Is she already on board?” She wasn’t in the line to enter.

  “She is late.” Two of the tall, shaggy Sthlynii approached, Therin and Naman, his—with their complex, overlapping families, Mac had yet to figure out if Naman was an uncle or son. Maybe both. Naman and the remaining two Sthlynii in Origins rarely spoke aloud to anyone but each other. They were, to Mudge’s delight, expert memo writers. Therin blew out his tentacles with annoyance. “We maaaaaaay nooooot waaaiit.”

  As if his voice had been a signal, the offspring dropped from Mac and Mudge to climb up the Sthlynii, disappearing within their thick tunics as if they’d done it before. Into pockets, she realized, as six big-eyed heads popped back out, paws holding what appeared to be candy to their mouths. “YumyumyumyumyumMac!” they sang happily around the treat.

  “That’s bribery!” Mudge accused, his hands still raised as if holding the small creatures. He dropped them to his sides at Mac’s grin. “Well, it is.”

  Therin’s tentacles milled in what Mac had learned meant amusement. “We miss our younglings, Charles. Caring for these sweet beings—” his hands patted several purring lumps, “—is a privilege. We mind them for Unensela as often as we can.”

  Mudge swallowed whatever objection he thought he had, perhaps, like Mac, relieved the offspring would have someone responsible watching over them on Myriam.

  Speaking of Unensela . . .

  “There she is,” Mudge said, then gave a sharp harrumph. “I knew it.”

  His tone warned Mac. Sure enough, two Mygs, not one, were walking down the accessway toward the loading platform. No, Mac squinted, make that one walking and the other jumping from foot to foot as if avoiding hot coals.

  The shouting became audible as the couple closed on them.

  “IDIOT! IDIOT! IDIOT!” This from Unensela, who shouted the word continuously without turning to look at Fourteen.

  He was the one hopping—and babbling. “Please, Glorious One. Your eyes are hidden chips of wet agate. Your tongue—let me tell you about your tongue . . .”

  “IRRELEVANT!”

  Needless to say, everyone else in earshot stopped what they were doing. Well, except for Kudla and his disciples, clutching bags Mac hoped contained frog statuettes. They used the distraction to move to the head of the boarding line and enter the shuttle. Presumably anxious to resume communing.

  She looked forward to his next book.

  Meanwhile, they had a problem.

  Fourteen had finally managed to stop Unensela. The tactic of falling flat on the floor in front of his ladylove was perhaps not original, but Mac gave him points for drama.

  The focus of all this was less impressed. Unensela kicked him in the midsection. “You are without strobis!” she shrieked. Fourteen curled his arms around his abused middle and kept his mouth closed. “There is nothing I want from you! Nothing!”

  Aliens. Mac sighed and stepped forward. Mudge gave her a horrified look. She made a face at him, then turned to the Mygs. “Do I have strobis, Unensela?”

  Unensela stared at Mac “Irrelevant. You don’t know our ways. Don’t interfere. This—” another kick, “—is worthless.”

  They weren’t, Mac noticed, particularly hard kicks. Nor was Fourteen complaining, as if any attention was better than none. More telling, she sniffed, the air was free of Myg distress. “Does my life have value to the whole?”

  “Idiot.” The female Myg’s mouth turned sullen. “Of course it does. We would not all follow you if it didn’t.”

  “Which would be why Arslithissiangee Yip the Fourteenth offered his allegiance to me last year, before you two met.”

  She might have sprouted a second head and startled the Myg less. Unless that was in a brochure, too, Mac chuckled to herself.

  “You . . .” Unensela dropped to her knobby knees beside Fourteen. Her hands hovered over him. Perhaps wary of her mood, he remained in a defensive curl. “Is this true, Tickles?”

  A cautious nod.

  Unensela’s hands covered her face and she dropped backward to land on her rump, the picture of misery. “All is lost!”

  So much for that plan. Mac sighed. She really should leave aliens alone.

  Mudge harrumphed. “I believe,” he said in his “officious” voice, “there is some confusion here. If I may, Norcoast?”

  “Please,” she told him.

  “ ‘Tickles,’ ” he used the nickname with obvious relish, “vowed himself to Dr. Connor’s service in lieu of any other suitable offering. At a time when his circumstances were, ahem, somewhat less complex. I believe, if you ask her, she will tell you his service is no longer required.”

  “Absolutely,” Mac agreed, having no clue where Mudge was going.

  Fourteen rose on one elbow, the aim of his tiny eyes shifting from Unensela to Mac and back. “You no longer need me, Mac?” he asked in a heart-wrenching voice. Beads of moisture dotted his eyelids. “It is because I failed you, isn’t it? I will do better next time. I have been studying sabotage techniques in my spare time. And explosives. You will see! I will throw myself into danger’s mouth for you!”

  Wonderful. Mac glared at Mudge. His lips shaped the words “trust me.” “Irrelevant!” he shouted, in a perfect imitation of Fourteen at his most obnoxious. He’d heard enough of it, she realized. “Insufficient! Insulting! Dr. Connor requires the ultimate sacrifice.”

  She did? While Mudge on a roll was a thing of beauty, as evidenced by the rapt attention of those around them, Mac was growing concerned by the direction this seemed to be going. Was the man after revenge for all those practical jokes?

  Then she noticed Unensela, who had moved her hands just enough to give Fourteen a wistful look.

  “ ‘The ultimate sacrifice,’ ” Mac echoed, putting some gusto into it.

  Fourteen clambered to his knees, dividing his earnest pleading look between Mudge, Unensela, and Mac, as if unsure who needed to be influenced most. “I would if I could,” he exclaimed. “But I’ve no offspring of
my own.”

  The offspring already present sucked candy noisily, seeming entertained by it all. Mac spared a moment to wonder at the sheer chaos that must be a Myg family night.

  “You could have.” Unensela’s hands fell into her lap. “If you were free to devote the appropriate effort, that is.” This with a sly look at Mac. The scamp wasn’t the least confused by the Human-Myg interface.

  Mac felt a certain sympathy for Fourteen. Still, he was the one who’d rapturously compared Unensela’s beady little eyes to wet agate. “Oh, he’s free to do whatever it takes,” she proclaimed. “So long as strobis is maintained.” One of the crew arrived and stood looking anxious in the background; when he saw she’d noticed, he waved and pointed to the shuttle. “Perhaps we could move this along? The captain,” Mac added, “would like the shuttle to depart on schedule.”

  Fourteen rose to his feet, then gave a deep bow from the waist. He put both hands over his eyes. “I, Arslithissiangee Yip the Fourteenth, can never hope to repay you, Mackenzie Connor of Little Misty Lake, for saving my valued life, more than once. If service to your strobis is not enough, then I, Arslithissiangee Yip the Fourteenth, can only offer my firstborn offspring to you, Mackenzie Connor of Little Misty Lake.”

  “That’s really more than I—

  Hands went down. A stern look. She closed her mouth.

  Hands up. “But to fulfill this obligation, I, Arslithissiangee Yip the Fourteenth, however unworthy, must now apply to the inestimable, the glorious, the—”

  The shuttle? Mac wanted to say, but restrained herself. The forks of Unensela’s tongue were hanging out.

  And growing pink.

  “—brilliant Unensela to accept my allegiance, flesh, mind, and spirit, so long as I may live.” His hands came down, one reaching out. “Will you accept?”

  The brilliant Unensela took his hand and pulled herself up, pausing to brush at her coat. “Took you long enough.” This with an affectionate push at Fourteen’s chest.

  Both Mygs, Mac thought, looked remarkably smug.

  And the waiting member of the crew looked remarkably desperate.

  “You’ll make your grandsires very happy,” she hazarded. “Now, sorry to rush you, but those heading to the planet should go—”

  She was talking to thin air. Both Mygs turned and started walking toward the shuttle, arms around each other. Therin and Naman, with the offspring, followed behind.

  Leaving her and Mudge alone.

  “What just happened?” Mac asked, throwing her hands in the air. “Where’s he going? He’s supposed to stay on the Joy—he was working with Fy—he can’t just go with her!”

  “Think of it not as losing Fourteen’s expertise, Norcoast,” Mudge suggested, looking smug himself, “but of gaining their firstborn.”

  “That’s not funny, Oversight.”

  “You should see your face right now.”

  “I am not adopting or otherwise accepting any child of theirs! What?” This as he shook his head and smiled. “They can’t make me,” she insisted, then sighed. “Can they?”

  Mudge laughed. “Norcoast, don’t you know the Myg life cycle?”

  Mac eyed him suspiciously. “Beyond wanton enthusiasm and sloppy parental care? Not really.” Given that enthusiasm, she’d half expected to have the results joining the offspring in ruining her wardrobe.

  “The firstborn of any fertile pair is a nimb.” Mudge held out one hand and mimed putting something in it. “Myg literature variously refers to it as “the love lump,” “the ideal gift,” or more crudely as “proof the plumbing works.” They aren’t the most lyrical species.”

  “Lump of what?”

  His cheeks turned pink. “I’ll let you look that up. Suffice it to say, caring for one requires a jar, not a room and education.”

  Why that . . . “Fourteen knew perfectly well I’d assume—” Mac’s outrage turned to reluctant admiration. “He got me, didn’t he?”

  Mudge whirled one finger in the air. “Welcome to my world, Norcoast.”

  Mygs might boast they had no external genitalia, but their bodies possessed a number of effective contact points to compensate for a lack of pinpoint accuracy. Mac hurriedly scrolled through the known, presumed—and highly unlikely— sexual positions involved, to the physiology of pregnancy.

  The pre-nimb, it turned out, was a plug separating the birth channel from the lower digestive tract, its eventual connection to the outside world. A male Myg’s sperm not only impregnated his partner, but began the process of crystallizing that plug into a nimb, which the female would pass before discharging her embryos. The embryos came packaged in membranous sacs of six each, completing their growth outside the mother’s body. Birth was officially declared when a sac split and offspring began climbing and warbling on the nearest adult or facsimile.

  The nimb itself received somewhat better treatment, being considered a family heirloom as each pair could produce only one. Not to mention, Mac realized, it was the only product of a successful mating that stayed put. The birth sac was traditionally stuck up in a tree or, in urban centers, hung on a hook outside the door. The hatched offspring were quite capable of finding and adopting their own surrogate parent, who apparently couldn’t refuse.

  She grinned, imagining Unensela packed and on her way to the spaceport, only to become a Myg-mom by walking down the wrong street.

  Ambush by cuteness. Somehow it suited the Myg personality.

  Mac poked her finger in the ’screen to find an image and found a catalog of display containers instead, ranging from ornate to obnoxious. Apparently, one did not bother to look directly upon the nimb.

  No surprise. “That is not going on my desk,” she stated.

  Cayhill looked up. “What isn’t?”

  Mac closed her ’screen and stretched. “Fourteen’s firstborn.” She got up from the table and walked over to the pod.

  “I don’t want to know.” Cayhill went back to his work.

  “Good choice.” Mac peered into the window. “How’s it working?”

  The physician had come up with an ingenious, if low-tech, way around their lack of experience with Dhryn anatomy. Rather than hunt for a blood vessel or internal organ, he’d simply fixed tubing inside the pod so one end, with a self-closing nipple, rested against the Wasted’s partly open lips. The other end of the tube came out of the pod, where a bulb and clip arrangement allowed Cayhill to test-squeeze a drop of his latest concoction into the being’s mouth. The idea was that a preferred taste would make the lips close on the nipple, then the Dhryn would either suck on its contents or they could force more in from outside.

  For this to work, Cayhill had had to reduce the repeller field to minimum. Even that slight press against the sheets below had caused more skin to fracture, more blue fluid to leak out.

  It had to work, Mac thought, appalled. The Wasted was now more skeleton than flesh.

  After leaving the hangar, Mudge had headed for the bridge, gleeful at having been invited by Townee to watch the shuttle launch. Mac had returned here to find Cayhill trying one mixture after another. The source? Bins and carts loaded with the remnants of fresh vegetables and ornamental plants filled one side of the room. A workbench with extraction equipment was in the center, lines of fluid-filled vials at one end. Piles of shredded leaves littered the floor. She assumed a technician had helped dismember and extract. No one person could have made that much mess so quickly.

  Though it smelled quite wonderful. You just had to ignore the undertone of rotting Dhryn flesh.

  Mac watched as the next glistening drop formed at the nipple’s tip, fell away to land on a cracked lip, then slid inside. No response.

  “Which one was that?”

  He checked the ’screen hovering over the pod. “Aloe and soy.”

  “Hand cream?”

  A shrug. “Components fit the list.” Cayhill pointed to the bench. “Bring me the next please, Dr. Connor. There.”

  Mac found the vial he wanted and brought
it. She chewed her lower lip as he poured the liquid into the dispensing apparatus.

  He glanced at her. “You have a comment?”

  “He’ll be dead before you can try all the combinations.” They all would.

  “If I were substituting,” Cayhill agreed. “But I don’t care about negative reactions.” He squeezed to release a new drop. “Only to find a positive one. I’m adding a new pair of nutrient sources each time. Should be done with the lot in another hour.”

  So much for scientific method. Mac shrugged, willing to go along. “Why not do them all at once, then?”

  “Some of these items are in short supply, but contain essentially the same elements as the rest. So I’m trying the abundant ones first.”

  Okay, some logic. “Let me help.”

  “Wait.” His face lit with triumph. “Look!”

  Mac pressed her nose to the window.

  The Wasted’s lips had fastened over the tube. She could see the muscles of his neck working as he swallowed. Again. She scarcely breathed. Again.

  “Hold this,” Cayhill ordered, thrusting the tube and bulb at her. He hurried to the table, his ’screen going with him. “I’ll make more.”

  “Hurry,” she advised. The swallows were coming faster; the level of liquid in the tube dropping apace.

  A vibration rattled the pod and the Wasted’s eyes cracked open. Mac fumbled for the com switch with her free hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re safe. You need to stay still. This is—” Dhryn had no medical terms ”—a rescue pod.” His eyes closed again. She couldn’t tell if it meant comprehension or collapse.

  “Move.” Without waiting, Cayhill shouldered her aside. He sat a beaker of liquid on top of the pod and began tearing apart the bulb and clip. Mac helped, taping in place the funnel he’d brought in his pocket. Cayhill threw more than poured, somehow managing to add more liquid into the tube before the Wasted drained it.

  Once they were sure the Dhryn was swallowing steadily, Mac leaned her back against the pod and surveyed the damage. Pale green liquid coated the side of the pod and puddled the floor. They both had streaks of it down their clothing. “Toss you for cleanup.”