But whoever had ordered Sol’s defenses to stand down before the nightmare that was the Dhryn had better be right.
If not, none of them would live to complain.
- 21 -
STRAINS AND STRESS
“I WILL HAVE ORDER and attention.” How did she do it? Mac wasn’t bad at harnessing a room, although it usually involved shouting or leaping on a tabletop. Brandishing something unlikely helped. The Sinzi-ra simply spoke those words, in her quiet voice, and everyone presently bickering, stopped.
It didn’t mean they suddenly agreed with one another, Mac realized, surveying the room from her seat, this time to the left of Anchen herself. Promotion or protection? Both likely applied. From what she’d heard so far, more than a few of those here felt the Dhryn had stopped by coincidence and that they should continue all efforts to contact the Ro.
Others, now believing the Ro were as much a menace as the Dhryn, and one capable of breaching the walls at that, wanted the Sinzi-ra to abandon the consulate and run for safety.
That left, Mac counted in her head: herself, Nik, Hollans—who’d proved himself, as far as she was concerned—and the Sinzi-ra herself. Hollans, meanwhile, had upset the majority here by ordering Earth’s defenses not to engage the Progenitors’ ships, the situation, he’d insisted, being too volatile.
So the only thing they’d agreed on to this point was that the Dhryn wouldn’t stay cooperatively still much longer.
Mac yawned, covering her mouth with her gloved hand. Which, she sniffed, smelled like dead fish. The staff had done wonders cleaning the corridor; they could give lessons to those students prone to fish tank disasters. Always a few.
She should have asked them to clean her as well.
“We are in crisis,” Anchen continued. “The IU has sent urgent messages to all members warning them not to activate any signal or device provided by the Myrokynay. We have not—yet—extended this warning to avoiding the Myrokynay themselves,” this with an elegant wave of her fingers that managed to convey informed caution.
Mac shifted unhappily in her seat, but didn’t say anything. One problem at a time, Nik had told her on the way to this meeting. One enemy.
As far as she was concerned, there was only one. But, Mac thought thankfully, stifling another yawn, she didn’t have to make such decisions.
“We have also made it clear that the transects must remain open, regardless of the risk of attack. Our connections to one another are not only defense, but lines of safety. We will resolve this problem as a group, for the good of all.”
“What about the Dhryn?”
“Ah. For this we must turn to Mac.”
Mac, well into a very pleasant “not asleep, really, resting my eyes” daze, snapped back to attention at her name. “We do?” she said blankly.
“While not all here agree, you have proved to me that your doubts about the Ro were well-founded. Their motives remain unclear and potentially antagonistic; their methods are not those of civil discourse.” Now there was an understatement. “However, now I must call upon your other area of expertise, Mac.”
Salmon?
“It is time to share with all of you that we have, in this building, a representative sent by the Dhryn.” Even the Sinzi-ra had to wait out the round of outcries this created, finally holding up one finger for order. “He was unwell. There were doubts he would live. Thanks to Mac, who knew this individual and is fluent in his language, he is recovering. More to the point, he presents us with an opportunity to negotiate with the Dhryn Progenitors threatening this world.”
That silenced everyone—who then turned to direct their appropriate visual sensory organ or organs at a certain weary salmon researcher.
Might as well paint a target on her forehead, Mac decided. Given the worried look Nik sent her, the same thought had occurred to him.
Everyone, including the Sinzi-ra, waited for her to speak. She’d much rather join Emily in a drugged stupor—sleep for a day would be nice.
Mac swallowed and said the only thing she could: “I’m not a negotiator, Sinzi-ra, but I’m willing to try.”
Nik stopped her in front of the Dhryn’s door, where they were shielded from sight by a rather reassuringly protective clump of Ministry agents. Most of whom she knew by name. “Here.” He held out a loaded syringe.
“Why did I know you’d have that handy?” Mac asked, but took it. A field kit dose of Fastfix, a cocktail designed to let the Human body continue past its natural collapse point. She’d used one before and knew to quickly drive the tip into her real arm, ready for the sharp pinch. In minutes, her electrolyte balance would head for normal, and stimulants would convince her she’d slept like a baby. If ever there was a time, Mac thought, and returned the now-empty syringe with a faint smile.
“You do realize this negotiation idea is a long shot. At best.”
He arched his eyebrows as if shocked. “This from the person who single-handedly destroyed the Sinzi’s no-space tank system?”
“You don’t know I destroyed it. The Ro probably did the damage. I—” Mac flushed, “—okay, maybe I poked it.”
“Proving my point. Put some of that ‘shove the universe’ attitude of yours to work for us. You can do this, Mac, if anyone can,” he said, low and sure.
“That’s just it, Nik. It doesn’t have to be me—” The rest of Mac’s explanation was cut off by the opening of the door.
“Greetings, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol!”
The booming greeting was the most cheerful thing she’d heard in a while. Mac walked up to the cell bars. “You look—you look great,” she said with wonder.
While she’d been awake, at work, worried, jumped on by baby Mygs, transported through no-space, and tortured by an impossible-to-bear alien’s voice—not to mention the flood of dying fish and a brawl in the signal room. And, Mac summed up dourly, another meeting with a long table, the Dhryn had been resting.
The result? One about-to-stagger Human and a robust, hearty alien. With, she noticed, every one of the little rings she’d brought adorning his ear ridges, and a bold, yet pleasing accent of burgundy at eyebrows, cheek ridges, and lips. Mac doubted she could have done as good a job with a mirror.
The golden irises of his eyes almost glowed. “While you, Lamisah, have neither rested nor bathed. What’s wrong? And why does that one sleep without waking?” A gesture to the left.
Where Mac saw the new addition to the room. A smaller version of the jelly-bed, with Emily lying on it, unmoving. She resisted the impulse to run to her side. Two was already there, standing attentively.
“She’s—” Dhryn had no words for illness or its treatment. ‘A Dhryn is robust or a Dhryn is not.’ Mac sighed. “That’s my friend Emily.”
The Vessel, who’d been sitting, abruptly stood. “Emily Mamani Sarmiento?” he exclaimed. “Lamisah to my beloved Brymn Las? She is found?” He hurried to that side of his cell. “This is wonderful news, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol!” But once there, he stopped and stared at the unconscious woman. “She is damaged.”
Two, who’d stood impassively as the larger blue alien rushed toward her, gave Mac a look of inquiry. Mac walked along the cell bars to stand beside the Dhryn, careful not to look at Emily. “Brymn Las told you—the Progenitor—about Emily?”
“Of course. And that she was taken from your side by the monstrous Ro.” Empty food containers in the cell shook as the Dhryn said something too low for Mac to hear. Likely something she’d agree with, she thought bitterly.
Unfortunately—or otherwise—Brymn’s last chance to communicate with his Progenitor had been before they’d learned of Emily’s betrayal. Not the time to share, Mac decided. Instead, she said quietly: “The Ro damaged her. We hope for the best. Vessel, we have to talk about something else—” Mac started walking toward the door to the cell.
But the Dhryn stayed where he was, leaning as close to the cell bars as he could without touching them, implying they were in s
ome way dangerous to touch. Not an experiment she’d been interested in trying. “Lamisah,
wait. Did they place their channels within her flesh?”
Mac nodded, startled by the question. “Yes. Links to no-space. But how—”
“Aieee! Then the Ro have not yet released their grip. If they do not steal her from you again, they will take what is theirs. You must be ready! Bring those among the not-Dhryn who understand the workings of a Human body, who can deal with extreme damage.” The Dhryn gazed at Mac with distress. “You doubt me, Lamisah?”
“I have seen no awareness of—” Mac was forced to use the Instella words “medicine or biology” before continuing: “—among Dhryn. Brymn Las told me these subjects were forbidden. ‘We do not think on it.’ ”
“Ah.” The hint of a smile on those burgundy-tinged lips. “And why should Dhryn waste a moment’s breath puzzling at that which is incarnate in every Progenitor? We are the study of life, Lamisah. The workings of living things, Dhryn or not, are our passion. Like yours! This is why I know,” the smile disappeared, “ that Emily Mamani Sarmiento must be in the care of those with such knowledge or she will end.”
Mac didn’t argue further. She turned to Nik, who’d stayed close behind her. “The Ro can still harm Emily,” she told him. “The Vessel—I don’t know how he knows, but he says she could need medical assistance at any minute. Please, Nik.”
He gave her a dismayed look but nodded. “We can’t risk moving her until we have another shielded location. I’ll get someone on it, Mac, but you need to work on the problem at hand. The ships.”
“I know.” Mac took a deep breath, feeling a rush of energy that had more to do with the Fastfix taking hold than any remaining adrenaline in her system. As she did, she checked who else had come into the room with her.
Nik, of course. ’Sephe and Sing-li, now standing to either side of the door. The rest must have stayed outside to loom appropriately.
Under the circumstances, Mac highly approved.
One and Cinder stood on the other side of the cell, as if awaiting instructions. The Trisulian seemed calm enough, although one eyestalk was definitely bent in Nik’s direction. Still angry or wanting to apologize? For all Mac knew of the species, it could have been neither.
Last and not least at all, the four who had come in that first time: Anchen, Brend Hollans, Genny P’tool, and the still-silent Imrya with her recording pad.
“What ships?” the Vessel echoed, in Dhryn.
They could yell at her later, Mac decided. She knew her strengths. Negotiation and diplomacy weren’t among them.
She opened the door and walked into the cell. The Dhryn met her in the middle. “What ships?” he said again, almost impatiently. “What’s happening, Mac?”
“How do you feel about crowds?” she asked, then patted the Dhryn’s shoulder. “Dumb question.”
“Indeed,” the Vessel replied. “Even the presence of not-Dhryn is better than being alone.”
“That’s good. Because you’re going to be meeting quite a few shortly. And you must speak to them so they can understand you. Their language. Please.”
Real alarm tightened the muscle beneath Mac’s fingers. “You said they would take you away from me, Lamisah!”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “That may happen. If it does, I want you to trust those you see here, in this room. And anyone Nik—Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski—brings to you. Will you do this for me? It is,” she added sincerely, “what you need to do for all that which is Dhryn.”
An arm draped itself heavily and awkwardly over her shoulders. “You are also that which is Dhryn. I will not permit you to come to harm, Lamisah.”
Despite their audience, in this room, beyond it, despite the contradiction between fear of this species and memories of friendship, Mac let her forehead rest against the Dhryn’s cheekbone, managed to stretch her arms as far around his body as she could. The alien stood perfectly still. Brymn had done the same for her. Their species might not share the use of physical contact for comfort; both shared the need.
Mac stepped free, giving the Vessel a final pat, and swallowed to moisten her throat. “Nik?” she called.
He joined her in the cell. Hollans looked as though he wanted to say something. Mac shook her head once, receiving a tight-lipped nod in return.
Nothing like a demonstration, she decided. “Nik, the Vessel would like to know what ships you were talking about. Tell him.”
The understandable outbursts from those outside the cell didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, thought Mac, except the instant comprehension in his eyes, the determination that replaced it. “Twenty-three Dhryn ships—Progenitor Ships—have entered this solar system,” Nik said, moving to stand where he could look straight into the Vessel’s golden eyes.
A long silence, then: “Why have they come?” Instella, clear and unaccented, yet with an undertone that rattled the furnishings.
“A signal—a call—has drawn them from the Great Journey,” said Mac, careful not to mention the Ro. “We’ve stopped it and they’ve stopped. But they haven’t left.”
Nik continued at her look. “We’ve tried to communicate with the ships, but there’s been no response.”
“Because you are not-Dhryn,” the Vessel explained, as if this should be obvious.
The Ministry’s top alien liaison merely nodded. “That’s why we need your help—to open negotiations with them.”
“Negotiate what?” It seemed honest puzzlement. “The Great Journey has begun. That which is Dhryn will not be distracted by other concerns.”
Hollans had come close to the bars. “You’re waging war for the Ro, aren’t you?”
Mac winced. That wasn’t going to go over well.
Sure enough, the Vessel immediately wrapped his arms around himself in that complex, defensive positioning. “Who is that being?” in Dhryn, flat and angry.
“Erumisah for Humans,” Mac said in the same tongue, giving Hollans a warning glare. In Instella, hopefully, she continued: “Vessel, that which is Dhryn shouldn’t be here. We,” she put her hand on her chest, “—I—don’t want to be food for Dhryn.”
A shocked “o” of his mouth, but he replied in the same language. “Is that why you think they have come? To consume your world as others were consumed? Impossible!”
“The dead planets of the Chasm. You—your Progenitor—spoke to me of remembrance. Of regret. Do you want that legacy again?”
“I do not speak of it.”
“You must!” A touch on her sleeve stopped her from more.
Nik’s eyes were gleaming behind his glasses. “Vessel. What could turn that which is Dhryn from one path to another?”
She knew she’d been right to have him do this, Mac thought, relieved.
The Dhryn’s torso tilted up slightly. Threat, she judged it, but not at them.
Yet, anyway.
“A risk to the Progenitor.”
Mac looked at Nik in dismay. If Earth’s defenders, nose-to-nose with the Dhryn ships, weren’t considered such a risk, what would be?
He didn’t seem flustered. Or didn’t show it, she thought enviously. “How would such a risk be discovered by the Dhryn?”
“The Progenitor would reveal it.”
Around again, she thought, frustrated, but kept silent.
“You are a Vessel,” Nik said calmly. “You can speak to other Progenitors—tell them this world is dangerous, that they should avoid it.”
A rapid series of blinks, like blue shutters covering those huge eyes. Then: “This world is not dangerous to a Progenitor,” the Dhryn said in a reasoning tone. “You two are my lamisah. The rest,” a gesture to the silent group outside the cell, “I am to trust.”
What had she thought about rocks and hard places? Without thinking, Mac breathed: “Let me try again.”
Nik studied her face, then nodded. “Go.”
Mac sat cross-legged on the floor. To keep his eyes on her, the Vessel had to relax and lower his head.
“Things are not as they should be, Vessel,” she said carefully. “That which is Dhryn has been shown a wrong path. A path that risks all Progenitors. I believe this.”
“I do not wish to speak of—”
“Stop!” Mac said sharply, looking up at the larger being. “You were sent to talk to me.”
Miserable, with yellow liquid oozing from one nostril. Tears. “Yes, Lamisah.”
“Explain to me. How does a Progenitor reveal a risk to her Dhryn?”
His mouth closed tight. Mac was about to ask again when she felt the floor beneath her start to vibrate. The reverberations traveled up her spine, jarring her teeth. “Like that,” she said with satisfaction. Though at a much greater intensity, given the size of a real Progenitor. It would be like an earthquake.
She’d felt it on Haven, before the planet split to release the ships, the Progenitors using their own bodies to warn their people. A warning that traveled through the ground and air, over vast distance, unstoppable.
A warning that this time might save more than Dhryn.
There was something about watching capable people getting things done, Mac decided happily, that satisfied the soul.
Either that, or she was experiencing Fastfix euphoria.
The distinction wasn’t important. She stayed where Nik had essentially parked her, near Emily’s bed, while he and others swarmed about to make and send a recording of what had been dubbed the Progenitor’s alarm cry. Which was more an alarm throb, Mac corrected, not that the name mattered.
They’d circumvented the need to bring in additional equipment—or move the Dhryn—by simply sliding aside a good portion of the ceiling. It also removed a good portion of the Dhryn shielding, exposing them all to the Ro, but Mac doubted the secretive beings would bother entering a room packed to the rafters.
Not to mention the presence of armored beings of every sort, intent on anything that wasn’t part of capable persons getting things done.
“You look pleased, Lamisah.”
Mac glanced through the bars at the Dhryn. “I do?” She considered the idea. “Relief,” she said finally.
Migration: Species Imperative #2 Page 46
