Migration (53 page)

She squeezed Nik’s hand once, then released it, letting her eyes say what she couldn’t. “Then I’ll see you later, Mr. Trojanowski.”

But it was the huddled Dhryn she glanced back to see before the door closed between them.

And the question he’d given her was what kept her silent during the trip back to the surface.

- Encounter -

THAT WHICH IS DHRYN has followed the Taste, followed the path. There is harmony. Concordance. The Great Journey must be completed.

That which is Dhryn resists change.

That which is Dhryn resists . . . resists . . . resists . . . . . . succumbs. Obedience to the Call is the Way as well.
Change
.

That which is Dhryn follows the new path.

At night, even without moonlight, jungles aren’t quiet. This one was no exception, although the babble of voices was an addition that startled most inhabitants into hiding.

It attracted others.

Movement began, high in the canopy. Stealthy, cautious movement. The kind that let one watch for rivals as well as predators.

Not that predators were allowed here. This was, after all, a civilized jungle, with wide paths to prevent the snagging of fine cloth on a rough branch; paved, to protect expensive shoes. It even boasted landing fields, so visitors needn’t exhaust themselves reaching . . . here.

The voices were closer. There was laughter. The sort of nervous laughter that meant some weren’t sure being here was such a good idea. Maybe some weren’t as ready as others. It wouldn’t matter.

Movement reached the tree trunks, became a climb downward. Always careful. Always ready.

Always . . . hungry.

A rival came too close. The battle joined, loud and urgent. The voices were silenced by it; footsteps ceased.

Movement continued.

As if only now realizing the nature of this place and their purpose in it, the voices began again, but lower, more . . . eager. The need to be here, in the dark, had supplanted any other.

The voices drifted apart, not to seek, but to be found.

The movement became quicker, came from every direction. Battle raged at each trespass, but more kept coming. The hunger was upon them all.

The jungle night rang with startled cries of ecstasy.

Until the rain began to fall.

And the cries became screams.

Then silence.

M
AC SHOOED One and Two from her bedroom, feeling as if she was back at Base and dealing with overly helpful grad students. Despite Nik’s assurance, they’d been unable to resist “briefing” her on the Sinzi’s requirements for secrecy all the way to her quarters. Only those approved by the Sinzi-ra could know about the Dhryn. Only information assessed by the Sinzi-ra could be passed along to those who knew about the Dhryn. And so on.

Rubbing her throbbing temples, Mac avoided so much as a look at the extraordinary bed, walking through to the sitting room with the intention of splashing water on her face, then heading down to meet her team.
New questions to ask; hard ones.

But two steps into what had been the sitting room, Mac stopped. “Oh my,” she whispered.

The Sinzi’s fish table was still there, its improbable contents moving in and out of rays of sunlight that didn’t match those shining through the windows. The jelly-chairs remained, and the sand on the floor.

Everything else was hers.

Her desk, reassembled complete with clutter, was in front of the rain-streaked window, her chair where she liked it. There were new shelves on one wall, white, but filled with her things. The silly screen stood guard by the curved Sinzi mirror, complete with an old sweater tossed over it, while salmon . . .

Salmon hung everywhere. Wood glowed where light caught an edge. Potent lines of black and red outlined fins, eyes, and gave meaning. Their shadows schooled across the white walls and ceilings, oblivious to gravity, intent on life.

Her salmon
.

“You’re early!” Mudge gasped as he came out of the closet and saw her. He was carrying an armload of beads which he promptly dropped on his feet. As he bent to retrieve his burden, he muttered something she couldn’t hear over the rattle and clank of the beads.

“You did this?” Mac asked incredulously.

Feet rescued, Mudge fumbled the beads into a mass against his chest and stood looking at her with charming despair. His hair, what there was, was sweat-soaked to his scalp, and he was out of breath. “Ah. Norcoast. Back so soon. How was your meeting?”

“You did this?” she repeated.

He gave an offended-sounding
harrumph
and actually scowled at her. “You’d left a mess in there.” A jerk of his head to the closet behind him came close to freeing the beads again. “And we have to do something with these,” he said anxiously, struggling to contain the noisy things.

Mac didn’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears. As either reaction would no doubt embarrass her benefactor, she merely blinked a couple of times and asked: “What did you have in mind?”

It turned out that he wanted them on the terrace. Mac followed Mudge outside, and helped hold the mass of beads while he climbed on chairs and affixed the end of each strand above the French doors. She was impressed. He’d obtained some type of glue from the staff that was delivered by spray. It seemed to hold well.
Probably need a chisel to get them off again,
Mac judged.

Her hair danced against her face in the light breeze allowed through the Sinzi’s screen. The air was cool enough Mac was glad of her jacket.
Better than the basement,
she thought. “Why outside?” she asked him, passing up the next strand.

Mudge glanced down at her, one hand pressed against the door for support. He’d already left a series of sweaty palm prints on the glass—or whatever the transparent material was. The staff would not be pleased. They obsessed about her footprints in the sand, raking them away every time she left.
As if a person could float to the washroom.
“Outside?” he repeated. “Where else do you expect the Ro to come from—the basement?”

As this was far too close to her own notions for comfort, Mac wisely shut up and kept helping.

“That’s the last of them,” Mudge said with distinct pride as he stepped down from the chair a few moments later. Mac managed to save both from tipping over. The chair was more grateful, Mudge shaking her hand free with an annoyed
harrumph
.

The strands weren’t evenly spaced. They didn’t even all hang straight down, a couple having a decided list. They did, however, thoroughly fill the space left when the doors opened. The noisemakers within the beads were heavy enough they wouldn’t sound at the harmless touch of a sea breeze.

When they finished, instead of “Thank you,” Mac merely asked: “You hungry, Oversight?”

But she wouldn’t forget. What Mudge had done was an act of friendship as pure and real as anything she’d have expected from Emily.

“You’re late.”

“Lunch meeting. Anything come up?” As she waited for Lyle to open his imp—
implying something had
—Mac let her eyes wander the Origins’ room, noticing nothing unusual, unless she counted a second Myg. “Who’s that?” she asked.

Lyle glanced up. “Who? Oh. Ueen-something. Nope, Uneen-something. Unensela, that’s it. I have an awful memory for Myg names. All the vowels. She’s your xenopaleoecologist.”

“Just Unensela . . .no number?” Mac asked.

“Number?” His pale eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. “You were expecting a number? She’s female.”

Would every single Human she’d meet here know more about aliens than she did?
Mac asked herself with exasperation. “Any good?”

“Your friend thinks so. Hasn’t been more than three steps away since she arrived.”

Sure enough, Fourteen was hovering behind his fellow Myg like Lee used to hover around Emily—until that worthy would send him on an errand or four. “This Unensela better know her stuff,” Mac muttered under her breath.

She brought her attention back to the archaeologist, who was, rightly, wondering why she wasn’t looking at the display hovering between them over the conference table. He’d commandeered it as a very large desk, shoving what appeared the remains of the communal lunch to one end. “Sorry. What am I looking at, Lyle?”

“This is from Sergio’s most recent assays of Dhryn ceramics from the ruins on their home world. I’ve correlated them against the references you gave us yesterday—Brymn Las’ work—and the results are, well, you can see it’s quite remarkable.”

Mac dutifully examined the complex three-dimensional chart, then turned back to Lyle. “Salmon,” she reminded him. “I know ceramics are in tiles and mugs, that’s it. Tell me what this means.”

“Biologist.” He had the gall to grin at her, then put his hand inside the chart, pulling at a serpentine mass until it expanded to reveal more, to Mac, incomprehensible detail. “Ceramics is an entire field of engineering. You can build a civilization around it. Several in the IU have. Dhryn were very good ceramic engineers. Were,” he emphasized. “A long time ago, over a relatively short period of time, ceramics virtually disappear from their technology. There’s a massive switch to other materials. Plastics. Metals. Spun glass. Microgravity crystals. Now your friend didn’t have access to our fieldwork. All he had to go on were artifacts from within the Chasm purported to be Dhryn. From before the event. None were ceramic, Mac. None.”

“Imports,” Mac guessed. “You’re thinking the change in the Dhryn materials came when the Dhryn home system was first opened to others by a transect. New technology arrives, better than the old. We see it here.”