Migration (54 page)

Lyle bit his lip and closed the display with a quick gesture. “No, we don’t. Here we take alien technology and blend it with the best or most popular of our own. Half the time, no one remembers what came first, but you can find the roots if you look. This? The Dhryn abandoned everything they had and replaced it. That’s not a natural pattern, Mac.”

“The Haven Dhryn had tile mosaics on their buildings.”
Lovely ones,
she remembered,
as well as outright jokes on passersby.

“Alien technology, Mac. Sergio’s already determined the Dhryn imported their ceramics from other species after joining the IU.”

“Give me a time line.” A moment later, Mac stared at the resulting display. “That’s . . . old.”

Lyle leaned so close to the display that millennia played over his pale cheekbones. “We estimate the Chasm was home to a thriving interspecies culture like the IU when our particular ancestors had pointed noses and hunted bugs.”

“Connected by transects made by the Ro.”

A few more had come up to listen. One volunteered: “We don’t know that.”

Another: “Of course they were. The Chasm transects were reactivated when the Sinzi re-initialized the Naralax Transect from the Hift System.”

“All of them?” Mac asked, curious. “What if some were destroyed—or connected in other ways?”

“The Sinzi sent probes designed to generate random destinations into every transect they encountered, Mac, probes that could multiply and send copies of themselves through any additional gates. All returned to their starting point in the Hift. The Chasm transects form a closed network. Everyone knows that.”

Everyone?
Mac didn’t protest.

“Why?” She frowned at the now larger half circle of researchers.

“That’s how many systems were ready for the technology,” someone offered.

Mac held her hands up, palms together, fingertips touching. “I meant, why a bottle?”

Mutters of “Bottle?” “What bottle?” “What’s she talking about?” went around the group.

With a look to get Lyle’s permission, Mac replaced his imp with hers and set the screen high enough so that all could see it. She pulled up a map of the Tannu River watershed. “If I wanted to count all of the salmon born and ready to migrate from every one of these lakes and streams, I could wait here.” She pointed to the mouth of the Tannu, where it opened into the Castle Inlet. “It’s like a bottle, with only one opening. So is the Chasm, if I understand you correctly. Why build something with only one opening? Control over what moves in or out.”

“But the Dhryn were already inside,” Lyle protested.

“Yes,” Mac agreed. “They were.”

A buzz of conversation started around the edges of the now-complete group, much of it involving jargon that didn’t translate in Instella or any language Mac knew. A pair sat at one end of the table to argue with each other. She waited.

The Sthlynii, Therin, had sat beside her. Sure enough, he found an inconsistency. “If there was only one ‘opening’ to the Chasm, and it led only to the Hift System, how did the Dhryn escape? You said they claimed to be pursued by the Myrokynay until they found a hiding place in the Haven System. But how did they get there?”

“I’m not sure even the Progenitors know,” Mac said.

“Sublight?” this from one of the Chasm Ghoul followers.

“They’d still be in transit,” from Therin, with disapproval. “We’re talking no more than three thousand years.”

“The IU connected the Naralax Transect to the Dhryn’s new home,” observed Lyle. No frowns or remarks followed, a testament, Mac judged, to the respect the Sinzi had earned with their care in choosing new species to invite into the union.

“I don’t know about you,” one of the Humans looked around at the rest, “but I really don’t like the idea that the Dhryn ships might have the capability to form their own passages.”

“We haven’t seen it,” Therin said calmly.

“Yet.”

“If they could do it, they wouldn’t risk using transects.”

“What if they do?”

The room filled with speculation. Mac let it go a while, finding and meeting Lyle’s eyes. She waited until she saw them widen with comprehension, then she stood to get everyone’s attention. When they were quiet, she asked: “What is a planetary system without a transect?”

Lyle didn’t hesitate: “A sealed bottle.”

“A sealed bottle that can sustain life,” Mac elaborated. “The Dhryn didn’t escape, folks. They were preserved.”

All that could be heard was breathing, some of it rather odd to Human ears. That, and a shuffle of feet.

Followed by a cheerful bellow from the back row: “My colleague warned me you were full of surprises, Dr. Connor. Glad to see it’s true.” There was an abrupt parting of the line—Mac suspected a shove—and the new Myg made her way forward, Fourteen predictably behind. “Preserved, is it? By who? And why?”

“Who is obvious.” This from one of the wrinkled Cey. “The only species with that level of no-space technology are the Myrokynay.”

The female Myg, Unensela, seemed the only one not shocked by this bold statement. Unensela and her—Mac blinked—her family.

The Myg was built so much like Fourteen she’d have had trouble telling the two apart, if it weren’t that Unensela’s hair was short, sparse, and black, compared to his short, sparse, and red hair. Their features were a match as well, though Unensela was wearing color on cheeks, forehead, and lips. All the same shade of vivid fuchsia. She wore a crisp white lab coat, open at the front apparently to supply a view for her offspring.

There were six looking out at the moment, each about the size of a half grown kitten and, as far as Mac could tell, identical to one another and their mother. Naked, they clung with hands and feet to a harness Unensela wore under her coat. Their necks were flexible enough to allow them to stare over their shoulders with huge brown eyes that reminded Mac of Sam’s irresistible beagle, who had successfully haunted so many supper tables.

Unensela, meanwhile, was peering under her thickened pink eyelids at the Cey. “Idiot,” she proclaimed. “Why would the Myrokynay ferry the Dhryn to a new home and keep them there?”

“A prison,” shouted someone else. There was a chorus of “yes, aye, has to be,” and species-appropriate nods. “What else could you do with them?”

“What they’d do to us.”

Everyone looked at Lyle after he spoke. He was standing now, too, his cheeks suffused with red. There were a few nods, some quick, some reluctant. With the exception of six Myg children, everyone listening understood what he meant.

Genocide
.

Mac coughed. “Fortunately,” she said, “we’re not being asked to make that decision. We’re being asked to provide answers to help those who must.”

“We don’t have the power of the Myrokynay.” “We need to contact them.” “Get their help!”

“In this room—” Mac stopped and raised her voice to be heard over the bedlam. “In this room, our job is to understand why the Dhryn are acting as they are.” She lowered her voice back to normal as they began listening. “Where they came from. Origins. Focus on that, people. There are plenty of experts here working on other aspects of this problem—and its solution. Have you seen the daily reports from the Sinzi-ra?”

Mudge was the only one who nodded brusquely at this. Mac wasn’t surprised. Of course he paid attention to everything going on, read every scrap of information. Even the deluge of information synthesized by Anchen for dispersal.

They’d have to talk,
she decided.
Meanwhile
. . .

“If you have ideas how to contact the Ro, give them to any member of the consulate staff on your own time. My time, you are on my questions. Is that understood? Let’s get back to work.”

As they exchanged wary looks and sorted themselves out, grabbing lunch remains on the way, the Myg stepped up to Mac. “Well? What questions do you have for me?” Unensela demanded. “This is a bunch of irrelevant archaeologists.” One of her children started to wail and she patted it absently. “And idiots.”

At least she didn’t point at the ghoul chasers,
Mac thought. There was sufficient tension in the room as it was.

“I promised you a famous xenopaleoecologist, did I not, Mac?” Fourteen pushed himself forward. A sly tilt of his head. “Is she not thoroughly splendid?”

Unensela ignored him. “Well?”

“I want you to work with To’o and Kirby,” Mac said, choosing to ignore Fourteen for the moment as well.
So long as he doesn’t start drooling over her console, Emily
. “They’ll provide you with what climatological information we have. I believe Oversight has obtained scans from cores into the planet itself.”

Mudge, who’d stayed tucked behind his corner desk during all this, gave a start at the sound of his name. “Scans? Scans?” He realized he was repeating himself and shut up with a nod.

“From those,” Mac continued, “I need you to tell me if there have been significant and predictable biome shifts. And why. As soon as you can. Tomorrow, if possible.”

Unensela’s hands patted offspring at random, her attention firmly on Mac. “A challenge, Dr. Connor. Interesting.”

“Mac. And welcome to the team. All of you,” she added, gazing into a dozen limpid eyes. “As for you, Fourteen?” Mac had every intention of assigning him a task at the other end of the room, if necessary.

“I have my task.” The Myg held up his hands. “Yours are irrelevant,” he said. “I continue to help the idiots downstairs interpret my perfectly clear translation. Helpless without my genius.” This last directed at Unensela, who seemed to make a point of being preoccupied with her offspring.

Mac opened her mouth, not that she was sure what was about to come out of it beyond a question concerning the usefulness of a stolen shoe to a genius, when a shout drew everyone’s attention, including hers, to the door. “Dr. Connor! Dr. Connor!”

She stared at—yes, it was Two, back in her yellow uniform. Consular staff, in her admittedly limited experience, never shouted, much less burst into rooms. “Dr. Connor. You must come with me immediately!” Two insisted loudly. Mac glanced at Lyle, then Mudge. Both men nodded back to her, Mudge with an anxious frown.

“I’ll be back later,” Mac promised the room at large, following the obviously impatient Two out the door.

Out in the hall, everything seemed normal enough. A few delegates walking about. A non-oxy breather hummed down the ramp in his/her/its/their bubble.
No sign of panic
. “What is it?” Mac demanded, controlling the impulse to check over her shoulder first. “Is he awake? Is there a crisis?”

“No, Mac.” Two’s voice had returned to its normal dignified calm. “Please excuse my abruptness, but we were briefed this was the most efficient way to extricate one Human from a group.”

Mac stared at Two in disbelief. “In a life-or-death emergency, maybe. You startled everyone in that room! Including me!”

“My apologies.” Somehow, the voice lacked sincerity. Mac harbored a sudden dark suspicion about what the staff on an alien planet did for fun.

“Where are we going?”

“The Sinzi-ra wishes to hear your daily insights.”

Before they entered the lift, Mac checked the light streaming down from above. “It’s not evening. Isn’t this a bit early?”

“I was not given the Sinzi-ra’s reason for the change in schedule, Mac.” Two’s hand paused at the control. “Would you like me to use the com system to inquire?”

Aliens
. Mac leaned a shoulder against the wall of the lift. “No. Just take me up.”

The Sinzi-ra was waiting in Mac’s apartment, playing with salmon. Mac assumed it was play, although she was willing to believe there could be other motivation for Anchen to use her long fingers to poke a series of the statues into motion.
Distraction, perhaps
.

“I’m here,” Mac announced. Two had left her at the doors.

“Ah, Mac. Thank you for coming.” Anchen’s fingers dropped gracefully to her sides. The salmon swayed back and forth, slower each time. Their shadows had elongated as the sun dropped lower, giving them an urgent look. “I see you’ve obtained your belongings.”

“Yes, although I hadn’t expected everything.” Mac gestured to the room. “I hope you don’t mind all this. I would have asked first, but . . .”

“But your friend wished you comfortable. It is understandable.” The Sinzi took one of the jelly-chairs. She’d come alone this time. “I trust you don’t feel you require these additional security measures.”

“The beads?” Mac smiled without mirth. “They’ve become a habit.”

“Ah.” Anchen drew out her imp, waving it in the air like a wand before laying it on the table. A ragged tooth barracuda within the table targeted the device, then ignored it. “Shall we begin? First, please, come here. I wish to remove your bandage.”