Migration (65 page)

So long as he was there
. He’d warn her if the discussion went in dangerous directions. He’d act, along with Sing-li, and hopefully the two staff, if Emily herself became the threat.

Then why,
Mac thought, dry-mouthed as she looked into her friend’s eyes,
did she feel alone?

“What are your questions about the Myrokynay?”

Lyle leaned forward eagerly. Mac presumed Mudge had given him some idea who Emily was, though she’d no idea what.
An expert on the Ro? Their spy?
“Do they live on planets now?” he demanded.

“This is—” Mac began.

“Dr. Lyle Emerson Kanaci,” Emily interrupted. “Administrator for Chasm Studies Site 157, financed by Sencor Research Group, a company owned by a consortium of Sthlynii, Cey, and Human corporate and governmental interests.”

Nik raised a brow at Mac. Lyle flushed in blotches of pink, but didn’t deny any of it. “What about his question, Emily?” Mac prompted. “Are there Ro worlds?”

Emily’s immaculately manicured hands, even in the field, had been a source of bewilderment to Mac, who couldn’t keep a nail intact in her office, let alone on a granite ledge. Now, the fingers crawling restlessly over the tabletop, back and forth, were dirty, with split, fractured nails at their ends. “The Myrokynay moved beyond the limitations of a planetary biosphere before the Sinzi knew what one was.”

“Harding was convinced they hadn’t originated in the Hift System. Too young for one thing,” the archaeologist muttered, as if to himself. Louder, “If they have no planets to risk, why do they fear the Dhryn?”

“The Myrokynay fear nothing.” The fingers were drumming now, distracting all of them. “They wish to help those of us at risk.”

“Did they help the Trisulians?” Mac asked. Nik shot her a look of caution she ignored. “Emily?”

The fingers stopped. “Where is this place?” An air of confusion.

“Home,” Mac told her, wishing her voice wouldn’t shake. “You’re home, with me, Emily. The Trisulians. They had your instructions on how to signal the Ro. Did they use them? Did the Ro—the Myrokynay—come?”

“You read my message, Mac.” Emily’s smile exposed yellowed teeth and swollen gums. “I told the Myrokynay you would. You’re stubborn that way.”

“The Trisulians. Did they send the signal?”

Emily’s gaze wandered to the ceiling, to the far wall where Sing-li stood watch, brooding and focused on them, to the alcove, to the windows.

Mac half stood. “Emily?”

“Mac,” Nik said quietly.

Okay, new subject.
Sinking back into her chair, Mac made herself take a couple of breaths. “Emily.” The dead eyes shifted back to her. “You told me the Myrokynay had been watching for the Dhryn to reappear since the destruction of the Chasm. Once the Ro found Haven, they took some of the immature Dhryn from their Progenitors—you said it was to test them. For what, Emily?”

“For signs the Dhryn were producing another migratory generation. Your own work uncovered this. I told them you were clever.”

“The
oomlings
who were taken,” Mac pressed. “What happened to them?”

The fingers started to crawl again. “Where is this place?”

Oh, Em.
Mac hardened her heart, rejected pity. “They underwent metamorphosis into the feeder form, didn’t they, Emily? Even though they weren’t supposed to—like Brymn! The Ro can somehow induce that change, can’t they?”

“Where—is this place?”

Mac couldn’t stop.
She didn’t dare
. “Then the Ro took them to different worlds and set them loose. That’s how they aim the Dhryn, isn’t it? By taking advantage of their instinct to seek more of the tastes returned by scouts. They returned those feeders to Haven, so they’d give those tastes to the Progenitors. Bait.”

Emily’s body rose from the table as if tugged by competing strings, arms and legs out of proper sequence. The rest stood as well, everyone but Nik focused on Emily. Mac met his eyes, seeing the warning there.
Careful,
he all but said aloud.
Don’t lose her.

The signal was being sent.
There wasn’t time for care
.

She’d spend them all if she had to. “Emily,” Mac urged, going around the table to where her friend stood, eyes wide and staring. “You used to think for yourself. Please. Listen to me.”

Emily hesitated. Something almost sane looked out at Mac. “Mac?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

A shudder. Every rip in Emily’s clothing glowed for an instant, as if the space held within her flesh had tried to accommodate a sun. “Mac,” more sure. Her hand wrapped itself around Mac’s wrist, fingers strong as they were cold.

“That’s right, Emily,” Mac whispered, her voice husky. “I’m Mac, your friend. We need your help. I need it. We have proof—”

“I found you,” Emily said as if she hadn’t spoken. Her grip tightened until Mac couldn’t help but wince. “I’m to bring you. Now.”

It seemed fitting that Nik’s shouted “Mac!” coincided perfectly with the universe turning itself inside out.

- Encounter -

“
W
E HAVE INCOMING ships, sir,” the transect technician re ported, calmly, professionally. Only someone standing close by could have seen her hands tremble. “Sending to your station.”

“Got it.” One look at the display and her supervisor smacked his hand on the emergency com control.

“To all of Sol System. This is Venus Orbital,” he announced. “We’ve incoming Dhryn. Two ships through—three—My God, how many are there?”

The technician assumed she should answer. “Fifteen Progenitor ships have now arrived through the Naralax, sir. There are more coming behind.” She turned to look at him. “Should I keep count, sir?”

He shook his head, reaching for the control again. “This is Venus Orbital. If you’re going to do something . . . do it now.”

T
IME SAT on a shelf. Rolled off.

Dropped her on a hard surface, in the dark.

No, not dark.
Light splintered over impossible shapes. She closed her eyes but couldn’t escape it.

Not alone.
Words. The sound was elongated, wrong. She tried to cover her ears, but couldn’t find them.

“Here is Mac.”

The disorientation, the pain, were all too familiar sensations.
No-space
.

Mac opened her eyes slowly. It didn’t help. She turned her head and retched helplessly.

“The Myrokynay will be here soon, Mac.”

Emily
.

Explaining the how and the why, but not the where. Mac wiped her mouth and squinted at her surroundings.

A sand shark looked back at her, then curved its sinuous body in a disdainful arc to swim away.

Mac blinked and found herself staring at the scuffed toe of a boot, a once-expensive hand-tooled black leather boot. She rose on her elbow and looked up the leg. “This is the tank room,” she said, unutterably relieved to be still within the consulate.

Where Nik could find her.
Would
find her.

“The Sinzi have been clever.” Emily flattened her hand against the wall separating them from the night-lit water and its life. “It is disconcerting for the Myrokynay to perceive our world directly from theirs. They had to rely on allies such as myself to be observers. This novel interface?” She drew her fingers along the surface in a caress. “It permits the Myrokynay to witness our doings with new clarity, to be heard.”

“So they’re in the tank.”

Emily started, as if she’d forgotten Mac was there. “In here? No more than they are in any one place,” she said. “Only Tactiles ever limit themselves to our dimensions.”

“ ‘Tactiles,’ ” Mac repeated, managing to sit.
Sitting was enough for now,
she assured her unhappy stomach. “Are Tactiles a kind of Ro?”

The illumination was dim, a mottled glow reflected by the coral within the tank itself. It played tricks with the dark floor and walls, hid the ceiling. Still, by it Mac thought she saw a flash of fear cross Emily’s face. If so, it was the first true emotion she’d seen.

“They are tools,” Emily said at last.

“Like the Dhryn?”

“The Dhryn are the enemy of all. They will destroy life until none is left. They must be stopped.”

Mac ignored what sounded like a mantra, concentrating on getting to her feet.
There
. Wobbly, but better by the minute. “Short trip,” she commented. “Does it get easier with practice?”

“What?”

“Moving through no-space.”

Emily’s hand fell from the tank. “I cannot move,” she said. “I cannot feel. I cannot breathe. I cannot move. I cannot feel. I can—”

Shuddering, Mac broke in: “It’s all right, Emily. You’re going to be all right.”

“Where is this place?” Plaintive, in a small voice.

Mac eased back. The door was behind her.
With guards behind that
. She estimated her chances. Emily was taller, had always been faster. But her body had to be paying a price for the abuse it had suffered, the gaps in her flesh a terrible stress on her system.

As if guessing Mac’s intention, Emily took three quick steps, but not to block Mac from the door. Instead, she went to a curl of pipe, hand reaching into the shadows. “You must not leave,” she said calmly, pulling out the hidden weapon to aim it at Mac’s stomach.

So much for physical advantage.
Cinder’s weapon. With their “new clarity,” the Ro must have watched Mac hide it.

At the thought, Mac turned, careful to make it slow and easy, until she could see the tank.

“Why do they want me here?” she asked.

“You wish to stop the signal. You are an enemy of life.”

Mac gave a harsh laugh. “Me? An enemy of life? You can’t believe that, Emily Mamani. I don’t care what they’ve stuffed into your head; you know that isn’t true.”

“You are Dhryn.”

“Nonsense. Two arms,” Mac held out her arms, dropping them again as the weapon rose in threat. “Two arms, five fingers, call an insect-eating primate ancestor. Human, Emily. Human like you.”
Like you used to be,
she added to herself.

~~DHRYN ACCEPT YOU~~

~~DHYRN YOU ARE~~

Every word tore into Mac’s skin, the sensation so real and agonizing she cried out even as she looked down at her body, expecting to see blood, even as she touched herself, unable to understand the pain.

Somehow, she raised her head, stared into the tank.

The water, the coral, the fish—they couldn’t have been replaced by this confusion of appendages and swollen dark mass, this shifting
emptiness
filled with disks that burned like stars, winking in and out of this reality with a distortion that threatened sanity.

Mac threw her arm in front of her face, looked frantically for Emily.

Emily had lowered the weapon, eyes on the tank, the lines of her face softened as if she gazed upon a lover.