Migration (28 page)

Kay’s upper two eyestalks—four in total, Mac confirmed involuntarily—bent to aim at Russell. “Ignore the rude creature,” Kay told him. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. We will, of course, pay the full price for our trip regardless. Send my companion here the bill.”

“But he said to send it to you,” Russell protested, giving Mac an anxious look. Fourteen seemed oblivious, busy rearranging cards.

“You don’t need to send anything, Russell,” Mac said firmly, glowering at her guests. “They will each pay you double the cost of the original trips before you leave here. And you—” she pointed at Fourteen, who froze with a handful of cards in midair to stare up at her, “—will pay for your own shirts before they are shipped.”

“Sounds fair to me, Mac,” Russell said with a huge smile.

Since no one from another world seemed inclined to comment, Mac went on: “Coffee anyone?”

“Something cold, please, if you have it,” Wendy answered. She’d been studying the card game. “What are you playing?” she asked Kay.

“Something he made up,” the Trisulian answered morosely.

Fourteen grinned. “Involving more numbers and less cheating!”

Wendy looked entranced. “Would you show me? Please?”

“Be my guest,” Kay stood, offering her his seat.

Russell dropped into the swing and put his head back on the cushions, closing his eyes. “Take your time, Wendy. We’re in no rush. Oh, I take three sugars these days, Mac. Thanks.”

Kay accompanied Mac to the kitchen, holding the doors for her courteously each time. “Should we prepare a beverage for Sam?” he asked.

“Got my own, thanks.” Back in his shirt, sawdust frosting his hair, Nik leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping a glass of water. His eyes laughed at her.

She was going to put a tracer on
him, Mac thought, exasperated. She went to a cupboard and snooped through Cat’s gifts until she found a bag of cookies. “So Fourteen invented his own card game—just like that?”

“He lives for numbers,” Kay said, putting on the coffee. One eyestalk watched what his hands were doing, its partner swiveled between her and Nik, while the remaining two stayed asleep. Mac was fascinated.

“What does he do with them—when he isn’t playing games?” Nik asked, stealing a cookie as Mac put them on a plate.

“Do? I’ve no idea.” The aroma of coffee began filling the kitchen. “He is paid ridiculous sums for whatever it is and considers himself very clever. Numbers,” Kay put out mugs, “bore me.”

“What do you do?” Mac asked. “When not vacationing on Earth, that is,” she added quickly. Remembering who was supposed to know what about whom was the worst of it.
Or was that who knew which who knew what?

Mac’s head threatened to throb.
Salmon,
she promised it,
were much simpler than spies.

“I’m a—I believe the Human equivalent is civil servant. I obtain information, prepare meeting summaries, that sort of thing.”

How—normal.
Mac spooned sugar into Russell’s mug, at a loss for what to ask next.
This,
she said to herself,
from the woman with a spy in her kitchen
.

Said spy was presently using his skills to sneak another cookie. Mac passed him the bag with the rest. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks. By the way, I’ll be gone a couple of hours. Need to get some setting posts from my shop.”

Gone?
She gave him a sharp look, but the Ministry agent seemed more interested in eating than clandestine signals.

“We have ample poodle. I will save you a sandwich,” Kay promised.

Nik looked startled, then worried.
Was either expression real?
“It’s okay, Sam,” she said, playing along. “I had some last night. Delicious.”

“If you say so, Mac. Till later, then.” Nik gave her that half salute, then ducked out the back door.

“You’re sure he’s too old,” Kay ventured. “Seems fit.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” She hesitated.
How did one casually ask about eyestalks? Was there etiquette?

“True for all species, Mac. Shall we serve our guests?”

Opportunity lost, for now, Mac followed Kay back to the porch.

Leftover “poodle” did make excellent sandwiches. Mac had Kay leave a plateful in the kitchen for “Sam,” so he wouldn’t mention the name during lunch on the porch. Wendy and Russell helped finish off the rest, both operating on what Mac’s father had called “cottage time.” In other words, lingering whenever politely possible until the next meal showed up.

Mac went down to the cove to help launch their canoes, just to be sure it didn’t occur to Russell or Wendy to linger for supper.

Russell still had his doubts. “You’re sure you want to stay alone with these guys, Mac?” he asked, standing beside his canoe. Wendy was pushing hers out. “They seem nice enough, but you never know.”

“If I detect the slightest hint of evil intentions, you’ll be the first one I call,” Mac promised, then grinned. “I plan to wear them out anyway. A good long hike, probably a few days’ worth into the bush,” she improvised, “then I’ll get a ride back with them to Base. Time for me to return to work by then. Tell Cat I appreciate the supplies and I’ll visit more next trip.” Then she beckoned Russell close to whisper: “We paddled a bit yesterday. Kay gets terribly seasick. Don’t tell anyone—I think it’s a pride thing with his species.”

Russell drew back with a knowing look. “Ah. Thanks, Mac. Good to know.”

And if their supposed itinerary wasn’t all over the lake by midday tomorrow,
Mac thought with satisfaction as she watched the twin canoes head out into the lake,
nothing would be.

Just then, a v-shaped flock of seven huge birds appeared over the trees on the far shore, their powerful wings beating in synchrony, flying toward her and north. Swans. Mac smiled as she hooded her eyes to watch them pass overhead. The pelicans would arrive next, with their unwelcome nesting companions, the gulls. Cormorants were here already, competing for space with early arriving geese. Herons would push them both out soon, reclaiming their colonies.

There was no sign of Nik as she walked through his construction site to the cabin. Mac didn’t bother wondering where he’d gone—or how, since there’d been no sign of an additional canoe along the cove. The sun was blazing down now, bringing that heady scent out of the pines and adding a pulsing heat even in the shade. Late May.

Some years, that meant snow,
Mac thought with a grin.

Kay and Fourteen were waiting for her, the latter curled into a ball on his chair, lumpy knees in front of his nose. Mac resolutely avoided looking at the expanse of strained paisley this offered. “We have been discussing the Dhryn life cycle and wish your thoughts, Mac,” Kay informed her as she joined them.

“I’m not a xenobiologist,” she cautioned. “I told you yesterday. My field is salmon.”

“Nonsense. You are a trained observer, with a relevant background. Your insights would be most valuable.”

No one at the Ministry had wanted them
. Mac couldn’t help but feel a little glow of satisfaction. Then she quelled it. “Valuable? Not without more data.”

“At the Gathering, you should find the data you lack,” Fourteen said. He seemed strangely subdued.

Mac took a closer look at him. “Are you feeling all right?”

“He received a message while you were saying your farewells. The news wasn’t good.”

“About the Dhryn,” Mac guessed, sitting down.
The air wasn’t this close,
she told herself, making herself breathe more slowly. “Tell me.”

“You tell her,” Fourteen said, covering his eyes.

Kay combed his facial hair with one hand. “We called them the Pouch People. They lived on a moon in the Osye System. Prespace technology, a peaceful, pleasant culture. The Osye were letting them develop with minimal cultural interference. Some trade. Farmers, for the most part.”

“Harmless!” the Myg wailed softly.

Mac swallowed bile. “Go on,” she said.

“There is nothing more to say. The Dhryn had come before. The Pouch People were warned of the signs but had no defense, no ships. The Dhryn came again and consumed every molecule of organic matter. Their world is lifeless. They are gone.”

Mac leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “And the Dhryn. Did they stay?”

“No.”

“Again,” she whispered, chin in hand, tapping the side of her nose with one finger, deep in thought.

“What is it?”

Mac’s finger stopped tapping. “After complete victory, they abandon a world suitable for their species. Why?”

Fourteen lowered his hands, wiping his eyelids as he did so. “They were afraid of being caught by the Osye.”

“They had what they came for,” Kay added.

Mac pursed her lips. “Or is it that they couldn’t stop there? Not yet, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

She rested her artificial fingers on one end of the nearest table, then drew a line with her other hand from that point to the far side. “What if the Dhryn are on a journey,” Mac mused slowly. “A journey with a purpose—a destination. They don’t stay, because they can’t stay. They haven’t reached their final goal.”

“Disturbing.”

Mac sat up and gazed at Fourteen. “Yes, it is.”

“If we knew that goal,” Kay ventured, “we could predict where they will strike next.”

She shook her head. “We already have evidence that the Dhryn are returning where they’ve been before, as if following a trail set by advance scouts. But from what you told me, there was only one Progenitor ship seen at Ascendis. That’s a problem.”

“Why?”

“Previous attacks—our only reports are of a few, scattered incidents. We don’t know which of those were Dhryn for sure. And we can’t know where else the Dhryn have been. Add to that? We don’t know how many Dhryn there are. When I was on Haven, I saw the Progenitors leaving. It looked like dozens—but the Human ships reported more, at least three hundred.”

“Why would only one attack at a time?” this from Kay.

Fourteen: “Where are the rest?”

Mac nodded at each question. “That’s why we can’t predict the attacks. If they are on a journey, a migration of sorts, all Dhryn should be making it. If only some are actively feeding—” she was proud of how the word came out without cracking, “—that implies the rest don’t need to feed themselves yet, or are being supplied by others, for all we know by ships going off the main path. There’s no pattern established.”

“Our military strategists are plotting the Dhryn’s most likely moves based on time-honored space tactics. Trisulians,” Kay said almost smugly, “were once highly respected combatants.”

“Ruthless invaders,” Fourteen corrected. “Good thing you civilized yourselves or you’d have lost your transects.”

Irrelevant,
Mac caught herself thinking. “Nothing the Dhryn have done suggests they have some plan for conquest,” she objected. “They don’t occupy territory. They don’t communicate or negotiate. They just—are.”

The other two were silenced by this. Mac didn’t blame them. She wasn’t too happy about the idea of a space-faring aggressive species that wasn’t behaving like one either.

In the hush, she could hear a shovel and gravel being poured. Mac turned to look out the screen.

Nik was back, working at the top of the path, making a great show of moving gravel from side to side.
An excuse to stay in earshot,
Mac decided. He was working in the full sun at the moment, his shirt tied on his head to shade his neck.

“What about the Myrokynay, the Ro, Mac? Can they predict where the Dhryn will strike next?”

Mac swiveled back to face her anxious companions.
Almost time for beer,
she thought. “I’ve seen no indication they can. They needed help to find the Dhryn Progenitors.”
But not the Dhryn world,
she thought suddenly. They’d known where Haven was. They’d attacked it before.
The Ro were after the oomlings,
Brymn had said.

“If only we could talk to them . . . ask what they know . . . maybe we could have protected those already lost . . .” Fourteen covered his eyes, making a quiet clicking sound Mac hadn’t heard from him before, like a cricket lost in the kitchen at night.

She sniffed, trying not to be obvious, then held her breath as long as she could, hoping the faint breeze through the screens would help.
He was definitely upset.

Kay’s eyestalks drooped. “The Ro ignore us.”

Mac unzipped her upper pocket and pulled out the sheet of mem-paper. “Not always,” she said very quietly, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry. She tapped Fourteen on his knee to get his attention, then spread the page out so they all could see it.

“What is it?” Kay whispered, eyestalks bent down.

Fourteen bounced on his chair. “It’s a message from the Ro, isn’t it, Mac?” he said, with regrettable volume. Mac winced.