Migration (8 page)

Like a certain someone who’d looked more at home skulking around in camouflage and armor than in suit and cravat
. “Nik,” Mac suggested. “And you, of course.”

“Me, qualified?” ’Sephe’s eyes turned bleak. “You could say that. Lasted three years in an orbital colony where revolution was the polite name for anarchy. Made me the logical choice to accompany you to the way station.” Her full lips twisted. “Make that the only choice, given the other three in the Earthside office at the time couldn’t find the arming mechanism of a hair dryer on a good day.”

Which implied too much about ’Sephe’s current assignment,
Mac realized, her mouth suddenly dry. “Is there going to be trouble here?” she demanded. “Is that why you’ve been sent?”

“Gods, I hope not.”

Mac blinked at the vehemence in the other woman’s voice. ’Sephe hesitated then lifted her hands in the air as if in surrender. “They didn’t exactly send me.”

“Pardon?”

“They didn’t send me. I asked to apply for the job.”

“Job? What job?”

“I found out you, I mean Dr. Ward, was looking for a new staff member. I took a peek at the listing, just out of curiosity, and—”
Was that a blush warming ’Sephe’s ebony skin?
“—it was perfect. I did my doctoral thesis on topographical analysis of multidimensional systems. Assessing failures in glassy metal moldings. My work has obvious application to the analysis of dissolved substance variances in tidal currents.”

“Obvious . . .” Mac’s eyebrows rose as she stared at ’Sephe, becoming convinced despite herself. “You’re really here to work with John and his crew.” Her lips twitched, then curved up. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You had no trouble getting approval from your superiors at the Ministry, who have a vested interest in this place and in me. All so you can do topographical analysis.” She couldn’t help laughing. “Some spy you are. Anyone else know?”

’Sephe looked offended. “I keep secrets for a living.”

Mac could picture Emily rolling her eyes at this.

“It’s not that I don’t take my work for the Ministry seriously—”

“But if you can serve and do what you love at the same time, why not?” Mac offered as the other woman appeared to hunt for words.

Another smile. “Exactly. I knew you’d understand.”

So now she had a reluctant spy—or was it an enthusiastic statistician—on staff?
Mac sighed to herself. Still, it had to be an improvement to work with a spy who valued their research. She cheered. Maybe, with luck, ’Sephe would become so engrossed in her own work she’d ignore minor details such as who was swimming among the pods in the middle of the night.
Or was it morning?
Mac stifled a yawn.

’Sephe noticed. “I’ll let you get some sleep, Mac.” She paused, having almost made it to the door again. Mac, almost to the couch again, waited politely, if impatiently. “I’m glad you know,” the erstwhile agent confessed. “I’ll do my best for Dr. Ward and his team. But I’ll have to follow orders from—you know who—over his or yours.”

“Just hope Kammie never finds out,” Mac said. At the other’s puzzled look, she smiled: “You’ll learn. Good night, ’Sephe. And thanks for your help with Oversight.”

“It’s Nik I hope never finds out,” the other echoed back to her.

“Mr. Career Spy,” Mac quipped before she could stop herself, then waited, curious how ’Sephe would react.
It was late enough for them both to have lost a little mutual caution.

Sure enough, ’Sephe actually winked at her. “I’d take that bet. Scuttlebutt says Nik’s posting Earthside was an early retirement, but no one knows from what. He must have traveled outsystem a fair amount, though.”

Mac fluffed her pillow. “What makes you say that?”

“From the day Nik arrived, he was the one the consulate would call to nursemaid the, well, call them ‘less familiar’ aliens visiting Earth. The weirder the better. Some of the stories he’d tell? Let’s leave it that if they weren’t in filed reports, I’d say he made them up.”

Mac had no wish for ’Sephe to give an example of “weirder.” Her own studies into alien life-forms and their cultures had progressed sufficiently to realize her wildest imaginings probably brewed beer or its equivalent, gambled on a preplanned vacation at least once in a lifetime, and contemplated their existence in terms of joy, tedium, or despair, depending on the moment and substance involved. It didn’t help her feel capable of understanding an alien mind. It did help explain why the IU had picked Nikolai Trojanowski as Brymn’s guide while on Earth.

Nik’s motivation?
Nothing so simple.
The Ministry had had its own agenda, which included maneuvering Mac herself offworld to learn more about the Dhryn.

’Sephe mistook her thoughtful silence. “Mac. He wants you safe. We all do. Don’t resent the precautions we’re taking, our presence here. But—”

“What we want can’t always come first,” Mac finished calmly. “You don’t need to tell me, ’Sephe. Nik and I have had this conversation.”

“Watch yourself. Okay? He can be a ruthless bastard.”

Mac blinked. She considered taking the bait for no more than a heartbeat.
Trust was earned,
she told herself. And she’d prefer to learn about Nikolai Trojanowski on her own terms. “Isn’t that part of the job description?” she replied.

“It’s recently been added.”

Lines drawn and acknowledged
. The two women shared a moment of perfect understanding, then Mac yawned so widely her jaw cracked. “We’ve all summer,” she concluded. “You are planning to work the full season.” It wasn’t a question.

“Unless the world ends.”

“Not funny.”

“No.”

“Where on that scale
. . .” Odd, how the reminder was a comfort. Exhaustion from chasing Mudge through the dark, Mac decided. Or maybe it was finally having someone else who
knew,
so she could believe she wasn’t the only one facing the truth.

“Good night, Dr. Stewart. Welcome to Base.”

“Good night, Dr. Connor. And thanks.”

Later, as Mac lay sleepless in the clarity of the dark, she clutched the sweater covering her upper body with hands real and synthetic, and considered the truth.

Had Nik, who doubtless knew ’Sephe very well indeed, made sure she heard about the opening in John Ward’s fledgling department, so suited to her true interests?

Mac nodded to herself.
Likely,
she decided. Why? How better to get ’Sephe here, close to Mac, than to have the woman think it was her own idea? More importantly, how better to convince Mac herself that in ’Sephe she had a potential new friend, someone to let close?

Mac shook her head. Too much left to chance.
Nik
made
opportunities. He didn’t wait for them.

So.
Easy enough to orchestrate that opening on staff. Mac could have done it herself. Simply arrange a flood of applications for John’s proposed new courses. Applications weren’t students nodding in their seats Monday morning.

What if the request for a new staffer had been tailored to match ’Sephe’s own passions?

An image of John Ward in Trojanowski’s trademark suit and cravat floated up behind Mac’s eyelids.

Where had that come from?
If there was one thing Mac could be sure of, it was that her transparent postdoc was incapable of anything more clandestine than his biweekly beer run for the Misses, a trip John somehow continued to believe was his deep, dark secret. No one had the heart to tell him his routine was so well known that Mac herself put in orders on occasion.

Perception was everything,
Mac mused.

Or was it nothing?
However Persephone Stewart had been brought to Base, Mac could only be sure of one thing: it wasn’t to follow the dream of applying her training and knowledge to the statistical analysis of dissolved substances in tidal currents. Or any other research.

“Poor ’Sephe,” Mac whispered into her sweater.

Which brought her inevitably back to one question: why was the Ministry’s only other “field-ready” Earth agent in Pod Three?

She nodded to herself.
Because something terrible had happened. Or was happening, even now.

Mac got up to find a real blanket.

- Encounter -

THERE were tales told of ships that appeared in the right place at just the right time. Heroes were made of such tales. Legends were born.

It was yet to be determined if the anticipated arrival of the dread-naught
Guan Yu
into the definitely unanticipated chaos that was the Eeling System qualified.

“Report!”

On that command, displays winked into life in the air in front of Captain Frank Wu: feeds from navigation, sensors, ship status. The first two pulsed with warnings in red, vivid yellow, and mauve—matched to the circulatory fluids of the
Guan Yu’s
trispecies’ crew. Threat should be personal.

“What in the—” Wu leaned forward and stabbed a finger into the sensor display to send its image of the planet they were approaching to the center of the bridge, enlarged to its maximum size. “The Dhryn!”

“Mesu crawlik
sa!
”

No need to understand gutter-Norwelliian to grasp the essence of that outburst from the mouth cavity of his first officer, Naseet Melosh. Wu shifted back in his chair, instinctively farther from the image, fingers seeking the elegant goatee on his chin out of habit.
Nice if swearing would help.

The bridge of the
Guan Yu
grew unnervingly silent as everyone, Human, Norwellii, and Scassian alike, stared at the sight now hovering in front of them all.

None of them had seen a planet being
digested
before.

Two of Ascendis’ land masses were visible from their approach lane. Both had been verdant green, dappled with the blue of waterways and the golden bronze of the Eelings’ compact, tidy cities. Now, huge swathes of pale dirty brown cut along perfect lines, as though the world was being skinned by invisible knives. The lines grew even as they watched in horror, crisscrossing one another, growing in width as well as length, taking everything.

The cities? They were obscured by dark clouds, as if set ablaze.

Perversely, the sky itself sparkled, as if its day was filled with stars.
The number of attacking ships that implied . . .
Wu swallowed. “Tea, please,” he ordered quietly, then “Amsu, are there any more in the system?”

His scan-tech started at her name and bent over her console. “No. No, sir. No other Dhryn. There’s scattered Eeling traffic heading—there’s no consistent direction, sir.”

“Yes, there is consistency,” Melosh disagreed. “They go away.” His voice, a soft, well-modulated soprano, was always something of a shock, coming as it did from deep within that gaping triangular pit lined with writhing orange fibroids. “They flee in any direction left to them. These are not transect-capable vessels; the Eelings have no refuge within this system. I must postulate hysteria.”

“Understandable. Communications, I want every scrap of sensor data transmitted to Earthgov. Start sending relay drones back through the transect. Two-minute intervals. Keep sending until I tell you to stop or you run out.” Wu didn’t wait for the curt affirmative. “Anyone come through the transect after us?” He accepted the fine china cup from the ensign. Out of habit, he sniffed the steam rising from the dark liquid. Odd. He couldn’t smell anything. Still, the small habit comforted.

“No, sir. Not yet. But I can’t raise the Eeling’s transect station to confirm and—” the scan tech waved her display to replace the planet, “—it’s a mess out here. Damaged ships is the least of it. There’s no organized defense.”

“There’s us,” Wu corrected.