Migration (55 page)

Mac sat cross-legged in the sand beside the Sinzi’s chair, waiting patiently as the alien’s fingertips feathered over her scalp. She felt a sudden coolness. “Excellent,” Anchen pronounced. “See for yourself.”

“It’s healed remarkably well. Thank you,” Mac told Anchen a moment later, trying not to grin as she ran her fingers over scalp that was now intact, instead of torn. No pain or tightness.
But there was
—“Excuse me, Anchen, but why is my hair growing in like this?” Mac felt the fine silky stuff. It looked as though she had a pale c-shaped stripe along the side of her head.
Not the fashion this decade, Em.

“The regeneration process starts with biologically young cells,” explained Anchen. “They will mature quite quickly. By the end of this week, you should see no difference. If you wish, a staff member can apply coloration to this portion immediately.”

Baby hair?
Mac wrapped some around a finger, forming a curl. “This is fine. I’d forgotten I started blonde.” Her eyes met the Sinzi’s in the mirror and she came to a decision. “There is—I have another injury.”

“
Alexia
. Word blindness. Yes. I know.”

“You know.”
She shouldn’t feel surprised,
Mac scolded herself. The Sinzi and the Ministry had shared their data about her. “Good. Then you’re probably aware it’s beyond our physicians. Can you help me?”

Anchen moved aside to let Mac step down to the sand. “Can our medical science repair the damage done to the areas of your brain involved in language? Of course.” Then she shook her head. The gesture looked forced, unnatural, as if the Sinzi had learned it in order to communicate with Humans. “But the process would risk your ability to communicate with our guest, Mac. Until the situation changes, all we dare do is begin to retrain your reading centers—your greatest need at the moment, I assume. I will provide materials to help you. Practice when you are rested. Be patient.”

As if she had a choice,
Mac thought grimly. “I understand, Sinzi-ra. I won’t say I like it.”

“Nor I, Mac. It is a compromise—in this case one that burdens you most. You have my sympathy.”

With a sigh, Mac nodded to the chairs. “Shall I give you my report? There’s quite a bit.”

“And I have much to tell you. There has been another attack.”

“Who?”

The Sinzi didn’t answer until she’d sat, Mac following suit. The alien activated her imp. Mac squinted, but again could see no more than a glimmer. “The Trisulians have suffered a terrible loss.”

Mac closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Their males?” she asked, sure of the answer.

“Yes. Word arrived within the hour. Trisul Primus was consumed by the Dhryn. How did you guess?”

“It’s where the Trisulians are most vulnerable. But what I don’t understand,” Mac added aloud, but to herself, “is how that helps the Dhryn.” Mac drew both feet up on the chair and hugged her knees.

“It did not. They paid dearly for the attack. The Progenitor’s ship and all Dhryn in the system were destroyed—thankfully in time to save the remaining populated planets: Secondus and Tierce.”

“So the Ro came to their aid?” Mac felt a surge of relief. “The message from Emily? It worked?”
This time, Em, she’d wanted to be wrong about so much.

Anchen paired her fingertips. A cautious, slow movement. “It remains unclear whether the Myrokynay were involved and, if so, to what extent. The Trisulian Ruling Council has never been forthcoming in matters of strategy—understandable when you consider their unfortunate history with neighboring systems.” She aimed her lower eyes at Mac. “If they received help from the Myrokynay, I admit being astonished the Trisulians were able to reconfigure their technology so quickly upon receipt of the instructions in the stolen message. It is a feat our experts have yet to accomplish.”

“Perhaps they were already close to such a device themselves.”

A graceful tilt of the head. “It could help explain Kay’s willingness to commit violence—a last piece of the puzzle, an advantage within reach.” Anchen’s fingers rippled from shoulder to tip. “Perhaps they had reason to anticipate a Dhryn attack.”

“Or provoked one.”

“An insight, Mac?”

Mac shrugged. “I’m no strategist. But the Trisulians were resettling the Eeling System. They hoped to find a way to be first in line to take advantage—that word again—of the other devastated systems. Not every predator will tolerate a scavenger on its kill.”

The Sinzi’s fingers shot into the air as if avoiding something offensive, their rings, silver today, sliding toward her shoulders.
Like a melodramatic willow,
Mac thought. “You believe the Dhryn continue to watch their victims? How? Is this what our guest told you?”

“No, Anchen.” The jelly-chair rewarded every posture but sitting up straight. Still, Mac made the effort. “I was only speculating why the Trisulians might have been a target for the Dhryn. I have no evidence, no reason for saying so. Forgive me if I distressed you.”

“The search for truth is worth any distress,” Anchen said feebly. One by one, her fingers gracefully slipped back down, each quivering as it moved, the whole process mesmerizing, as though the Sinzi hypnotized herself—and Mac—into a measure of peace. “But another subject would be easier at this moment. Perhaps insights about our guest? You’ve done wonders anticipating his needs.”

Our guest
. “Insights,” Mac repeated, staring down at the Sinzi’s imp.
On the record,
she reminded herself, unsure why she felt impelled to caution.
Same side, Em. Still
. . . “Anchen, should we speak freely here?” She gestured to the room.

The Sinzi aimed all of her eyes at Mac. “We have privacy here, Mac.” She touched fingertip to her imp. “But no secrets from fellows within the IU,” she said calmly. “Particularly this Gathering.”

Other than a room lined with the Dhryn cloaking material, complete with Dhryn
. Mac’s lips twisted wryly. She understood the need for that discretion. There probably wasn’t a single researcher here who wouldn’t want to see the Dhryn—
or,
her blood chilled,
worse
.

The Sinzi read her expression with practiced ease.
Unsettling,
Mac decided,
when she couldn’t do the same
. “I admit the inconsistency, Mac. The situation calls for some information to be—delayed. All will be recorded and shared. To those working on physiology, we have provided data; there was no need to specify its source. Nor do we see a need for experimentation or invasive tests at this time. Your interrogation of Parymn Ne Sa Las comes first. What results do you have?”

Mac gazed into multiple reflections of herself in alien eyes, feeling twisted inside, as though her lunch expressed an opinion. “Very little yet, Anchen. He’s come to talk on behalf of his Progenitor. She wants to learn the truth.”

“About what?” the other asked reasonably.

“We didn’t get that far. Parymn’s unaccustomed to alien life-forms. He’s had trouble adjusting.”

“A poor choice of ambassadors.”

Was he?
Mac frowned thoughtfully. “It would seem so,” she agreed at last. “Parymn did have a question of his own for me. He wanted to know what happened to Brymn Las.” Her voice held, steady and sure.
You’d be proud, Em
. “When I told him, he didn’t believe me at first. He still might not.”

“How is this significant?”

“I don’t know,” Mac admitted. “But the transformation to the—feeder form—is the point at which individual Dhryn become a threat. We should find out as much as we can about it.”

“I concur. Is there anything more?”

Something went wrong. Brymn was to be a Progenitor.
Mac, grateful she hadn’t said the words aloud, gathered herself. “Yes. I think we should be careful how literally we take what Parymn tells us. I have doubts about his ability to—” she hunted for the right word, “—reconcile his worldview with ours. What he thinks he knows? Very little may be of use.”

“Is he insane?”

Mac blinked. “I’m not qualified to say—”

“Give me an opinion, Mac,” Anchen insisted. “We have already seen him be self-destructive. Is he sane for what you know of his kind?”

“He’s angry. Frightened. Resentful. Who wouldn’t be?” Mac paused to consider, watching fish swim inside the impossible table. “Otherwise? I honestly don’t know, Anchen. I’ll need to talk with him more first.”

“You are a remarkable being, Dr. Mackenzie Connor.”

Surprised, Mac looked up at the Sinzi. “I am?”

“There are few within this building I would trust near our guest, even if they had the courage to step within his cell. Fewer still I would trust to act as interpreter, under such dire and unhappy circumstances, even if they had the ability. Yet you, with what has happened, all you have endured, continue to act with clarity and compassion.” The Sinzi bowed. “Remarkable and rare. I deeply cherish our connection.”

“Thank you, Sinzi-ra. I cherish it as well.” Mac sighed.

“All I can I do is try my best. I hope that’s going to be enough.”

A shrug that set rings sparkling. “So do we all.”

Mac made her way to Parymn’s cell, having grabbed a bag of supplies before leaving her room. She’d also moved the information she wanted from the imp Fourteen had given her into her own—along with an astounding number of messages from other attendees of the Gathering, all collected within the last twenty-four hours.
Which was what being named head of anything really meant, Em.

Needing only one hand to control the lift, Mac set her imp so the list hovered in front of her, the flashing lift lights a minor distraction. She pushed the device into the waistband of her pants to free her left hand. Now to attempt to organize the mess.

Sorting by priority didn’t help, since almost all were marked “urgent!”

Trust academics, even alien ones
. “Some things never change,” Mac muttered out loud. By source, then. She found and pulled aside those from her group and the Sinzi. She looked at the rest rather helplessly, then forwarded them to Mudge with one sweep of her hand.

What were friends for?
she grinned to herself.

The door whooshed open on the white corridor.

Mac took a deep breath and closed the display. As before, the corridor was empty and featureless, like the inside of a throat. She found herself reluctant to step from the lift, started to reach for the controls to close the doors.
As if she could stay here, Em,
she scolded herself. Settling the bag over her shoulders, and her imagination with it, Mac started walking.

At each of the three guard stations, she was stopped while beings of varied species examined her small bag. Mac wasn’t sure what they were looking for—or in one instance, sniffing—considering she was one of the “assets” being protected by their presence.
Bored,
she decided.

Faced with the three doors again, Mac looked wistfully at the one which led to the vastness of the Atrium, then went toward Parymn’s. She hesitated, looking over her shoulder. She was still alone. No obvious surveillance. Her eyes were drawn to the door Nik and Cinder had gone through first.

“Probably nothing,” she assured herself, again turning toward Parymn’s.

That did it. Mac left her bag on the floor by the door she should go through and went briskly to the one she likely shouldn’t.

It wasn’t locked. No alarms sounded when she pushed it open. At first, Mac was disappointed. Another white corridor, this time offering only one large door before turning right and heading into a perspective-turning distance. It sloped downward at the same time, like the hallways above ground.

“ ‘In for a penny,’ ” Mac whispered to herself, pushing against the large door.

Instead of swinging forward, this door reacted by sliding to one side, disappearing into the wall. Sunlight, dappled and moved by water, lay across Mac’s toes. It was an invitation she took without hesitation.

“Oh,” she breathed as she walked inside.

The impossible table in her room was a window here, to this place. A block of ocean, for it could be nothing less, stretched three times her height and wide enough to vanish into shadows on either side. Sunlight, either brought from the surface or feigned, cut through the water in great beams. Fish of every possible color and form slipped in and out of them, alone, in schools, flashes of life wheeling above the corals, oblivious to anything but themselves. Shrimp scurried everywhere, antennae flicking in the currents, too busy to hide despite being on everything’s menu. Including the Sinzi’s.

Mac laid her palms flat against the transparent hardness of the tank wall, stopping short of pressing her nose to it. The floor of this room wasn’t the bottom. She could make out the edge of the coral shelf, slim dark shadows below that marking where barracuda and shark loitered.