Migration (71 page)

Mac rested her fingers over his for an instant, smiling what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “No. But a friend is. I want to say good-bye, that’s all. You can wait back at the consulate.”

“And miss a chance to see the latest Sinzi machines?” he said. “Nonsense, Norcoast.”

She’d tried
. “Fine. But don’t slow us down.”

Much to Mudge’s chagrin, the last part of their journey angled away from the landing field. Instead, ’Sephe paused on the path beside a bench like all the others, checked all around, then led them off the path into the forest. Behind a dense planting of shrubs with thorns Mac decided would make quite reasonable knives, they came to an access port built into the volcanic rock. “Through here,” ’Sephe said quietly. “Watch your step.”

The warning came suspiciously late, Mudge having gone first and a faint cry of pain coming from the open doorway.

’Sephe grinned at Mac. “I told him.”

Mac followed ’Sephe, who, after closing the door, took her down three uneven steps, then up a fourth where a low rail required those passing it to duck underneath. Mudge was there, rubbing his head. “This doesn’t seem very efficient,” he complained.

“If you have to run through here,” ’Sephe assured him, “you’ve other things to worry about.”

The corridor wasn’t Sinzi white, but crudely carved into rock, in some places so irregular that the ceiling protruded downward. ’Sephe activated the lights in each twisting segment as they approached, checking the way ahead but stopping short of making them wait while she did so.

Just when Mac felt they were probably under the ocean, the corridor widened into a disarmingly normal cargo loading space, complete with busy servos and workers moving crates to and from a series of rakish-looking surface-to-orbit craft lined up before immense closed doors.

Mudge made a happy sound.

’Sephe jerked her head toward what appeared to be a temporary shelter within the cargo bay. “In there, Mac. Don’t be long.”

Now that she was here, Mac’s feet felt glued to the floor. She held out the salmon. “Take this for me—”

“Mac.”

“Please.” She shoved it into ’Sephe’s hand and ran back into the tunnellike corridor.

She’d said good-bye to Sam.

“Stupid rail.” Mac sat on the bench and rubbed her hip.

She’d forgotten the trap and almost flipped right over the bar, saving herself in time.

Bruising her hip nicely
.

She leaned back, grateful the bench had a back, although it wasn’t quite meant for her particular body plan.
And those odd holes in the middle
. . . Mac bent over to look, trying to match their shape to the posteriors of the aliens she’d met here.

She froze in place. The sound was surely innocent in a tamed wood like this. Mac listened, but heard nothing further.

Suddenly, a wooden salmon appeared under her nose, peering up at her through one of the holes.

“Funny,” she managed to say, sitting up with a jerk.

The salmon withdrew and Nik came around the bench to sit beside her. He didn’t say a word, just held the carving on his lap, in both hands, apparently studying it for all he was worth.

Mac looked at him. Gone were the glasses, the suit, the cravat. Now he wore a spacer’s jumpsuit, faded enough to likely be his own, pockets everywhere. It might have been dark blue once. Maybe purple. The boots were newer.

“You didn’t dream last night.” Quietly, as if to the wooden fish.

She gave an exasperated snort. “If you were there, why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I hadn’t seen you sleep like that before.” Mac watched the dimple suddenly deepen in his cheek. “You snore.”

“I do not,” she protested and was fascinated by the upcurve of the corner of his mouth.

“It’s a cute snore.”

“Oh, that helps.”

They fell silent again, Nik watching the salmon, Mac watching him.

“I made some notes for you,” she said abruptly. “I gave them to Anchen.”

“Got them. Thanks. And this.” He put the salmon in one hand, and drew out the amulet from around his neck, the one the Progenitor had sent with Parymn. Still not looking at her, Nik brought it to his lips, then put it back inside his coveralls. The salmon went in a pocket. He leaned back, his head tilted to stare up into the trees. “I left you some notes, too. Gave them to your friend, Oversight.”

Mac memorized the strong lines of his throat, pleasantly tormented by the pulse along the side, the soft shadow below his jaw. “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving? Soon.”

“Now. They’re holding the launch for me.”

Time’s up
. Mac’s hands felt strangely heavy. “Nik. Why didn’t you wake me? We could—” She couldn’t help the huskiness of her voice. “A night. At least that.”

She watched his throat work as he swallowed. “I considered it.” The voice was light. Then Nik lifted his head and her heart pounded at the heat in his eyes. “Then I realized I’d want tomorrow and the next night. That I couldn’t imagine any amount of time with you being enough. That I had to leave then or I wouldn’t leave at all.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t smile at the single syllable she managed, gazing into her eyes as if he couldn’t do anything else, motionless.

Sometimes,
Mac told herself as she reached for him,
you had to give the universe a shove
.

The universe didn’t seem to mind at all.

M
AC NUDGED the glasses on the table in a half circle, careful not to touch the lenses. They’d been with the notes Nik had left her. Mudge had thought them an odd sort of gift. Then again, he still thought Nik was Stefan.

They were an odd gift,
she smiled to herself,
but useful
. Through Nik’s lenses, the white walls and furnishings of the consulate showed their true Sinzi glory. Not a bad perk for being the Sinzi-ra’s favorite Human.

There’d been no news. Not yet. The Ro were silent. The Dhryn might have all been killed—not that anyone believed it. Researchers were poring over every scrap of wreckage and space-chilled flesh. Nik hadn’t reported in—that they’d told her. The two, Human and Dhryn, weren’t traveling alone, although Mac hadn’t been pleased to learn Cinder had been one of those selected. But Nik could handle it. She had her part of the puzzle. The Origins Team was busy and productive.

Although there had been,
Mac scowled,
far too many meetings
.

“Where did I leave off?” she mumbled to herself, picking up the clumsy thing. The book wasn’t a real antique, but a copy. A stack of others lay in the sand—gifts from her Dad.
The format was,
Anchen had assured her,
a welcome change for her eyes,
easily tired these days from practicing her reading skills.

“Ah. Here.”

Mac had wrestled one of the jelly-chairs to where the afternoon sun would fall over her shoulder. Winter had already given them a frost or two, but also clearer skies. She curled herself up and looked over at Emily with a wistful smile.

Against the white pillow, her face was composed, at peace. As it had been for the last twenty-seven days. The skin had recovered some of its luster, though not all. The cheeks were still sunken, the arms above their prostheses too thin. Her bones, graceful yet ominous, pressed outward as if anxious to leave. The hair alone seemed right, shining black and thick.

Every third breath was that soft little snore Em had denied utterly when awake. Mac listened for it in the night, obscurely comforted.

“Any change?”

Two put a glass of water on Mac’s desk, in reach of her hand. “No, Mac. Do you wish me to stay?”

“It’s okay. Unless you want to hear the rest of this story?”

The staff came as close as ever to smiling, a crinkle at the corner of her eyes, a tilt to her head. “No, Mac. I heard sufficient of the last seven to know how it will end.”

When Two had left, Mac took a drink, then found her page. True, the selection tended to a certain similarity in plot, but there were exciting bits. This part, for example. She cleared her voice and started to read aloud. “ ‘The trail through the bog had grown cold since midnight—’ ”

“There’s no sex in that one either.”

“There doesn’t have to be sex in everything you read,” Mac said automatically, turning the page.

Then, realizing what had just happened, she stopped. The book fell from her hands as she looked toward Emily.

Dark eyes, tired
sane
eyes, met hers. “I should have remembered,” Emily said, voice weak but feathered at the edges with that familiar, amused warmth. “You never let go of anyone, do you, Mac?”

Instead, Mac took Emily’s outstretched hand gently in hers. It didn’t matter that neither were real.

“Welcome back, Em.”

REGENERATION
Species Imperative #3
Coming from DAW in May 2006

“
W
E SHOULDN’T be here.” Inric didn’t let his attention stray from the scanner readout. “No one will know.”

His partner, an as yet unblooded Ehztif and thus certified for space travel with other life-forms, continued to pace. She’d taken the usename Bob for its supposed calming effect on Humans, obligate predators being uncomfortable company. Not that Bob was such a predator—not until that first ritual hunt, years in her future, when her digestive system would switch into its mature phase. For now, she drank packaged secretions like everyone else, and expressed a fondness for salted crackers.

Inric pursed his lips and tried to ignore the unsettling click of Bob’s talons on the floorplate. It had seemed a good idea at the time to choose an Ehztif partner. No Human-centric games. Enough daring for any escapade but reliably steady.

He would have to find the one Ehztif with an imagination. “Relax,” Inric said, leaning back to demonstrate. “Get the data. Get paid. There’s nothing here.”

Bob stalked—there was no other word for it—to the platform’s edge and stared out over the waves. “Nothing. You don’t know what that means, do you, Human. But I—I can taste it on the wind.” The Ehztif released her prehensile tongue, flipping it through the air before she brought it back into her mouth. She appeared to chew for a few seconds, then sharply expanded her cheek pouches in disgust. “Nothing lives here.”

As that was exactly what the Sencor Consortium hoped to confirm, Inric gave a tight smile. “If the scanners are as accurate as your taste buds, Bob, our clients will be pleased.”

“Scavengers.”

“An essential part of life,” the Human replied.

The Ehztif sniffed. Her species shared their home system with the much-despised Sethillak, definitely closer to the scavenger scheme of things. That the two had managed to coexist after encountering one another in space was one of the marvels of the Interspecies Union.