Regeneration (Czerneda) (54 page)

Really not curious at the moment,
she decided. A Wasted was dangerous. Brymn had been emphatic in his warning. They were known to attack other Dhryn. Mac’s heart began to race again.

The gnawed remains of the
Uosanah
crew . . . the available but ignored food within the storage unit . . .
yummy fresh Human
.

Just as she tensed to squirm away as quickly as possible,
Ro or not,
the hand fell to the deck, palm up. The fingers spasmed once, as if in entreaty, then were still.

Mac hesitated, remembering more of that conversation with Brymn, another lifetime ago. She’d told him she sought the truth. She’d claimed it was part of being Human to act . . . to help.

Her left hand was touching her pack. Moving very slowly, Mac reached inside until her fingers closed on a nutrient bar. She brought it out, bringing her left arm over her head until her hand was near the Wasted’s. “This is our food,” she whispered as quietly as she could. She laid the bar on its palm.

The fingers curled closed. The hand withdrew. She could see the glint of the eye, then it was gone; the head had changed position.
Trying her offering?

The hand reappeared, empty and palm up.
Didn’t bother to chew.
Mac reached into her pack and found another bar. It vanished in turn. When the hand came out a third time, she whispered, “I’m sorry. That’s all I have.”

A vibration she felt through the floor. Distress.

“I’m Mac—”
Dhryn formalities seemed even more pointless than usual.
“Who are you?”

The voice was faint but clear. “I do not exist.”

Aliens.
Mac lifted her head until it touched the crate above, trying to see more of the Dhryn. “We can discuss that later,” she told it. “Can you walk?”

Her first fear, that the Ro would be waiting for them, proved unfounded. Her second, that the Wasted was wedged under the crate for good, proved uncomfortably close to the truth. It was too weak to struggle free on its own. She’d finally had to lie down and pull at whatever emaciated limbs she could reach. She did so as gently as possible, gradually working the Dhryn free.

During this process, they’d been sitting ducks.
Proving the Ro was otherwise occupied.

Doing her best not to think about how, Mac sat beside the Dhryn, letting it recover. In the light, the reason for calling this state the “Wasting” was apparent. The being was little more than fracturing skin over bone. She was astonished it still breathed. The arms were sticks, the legs not much better.
The hands
. . . she leaned closer. Three were missing, severed neatly. This had been a Dhryn of accomplishment, thrice honored by his Progenitor. No other clues. Its—
his,
she told herself—his body bore no bands of cloth.
They probably wouldn’t have stayed up anyway.

The rotting flesh smell came from the fissures in his skin. There was nothing she could do about those, not here, and the fluid they leaked was going to leave a trail.

“You need to stand,” she said.
Where was Norris?
She saw the umbrella and offered it. “Use this.”

“Why?” The Wasted lifted his face to hers. The yellow of his eyes was sallow and pale, the flesh pulled away from the bony ridges of his features to show her the precise shape of his skull. His lips barely moved. When they did, they bled. “I do not exist.”

“The Ro do,” she said deliberately. “There’s one on your ship. We have to leave, now.”

When his eyes half closed, as if in defeat, she sharpened her tone. “I am Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. That which is Dhryn must survive. Do you understand me?”

“You are Human,” he whispered in perfect Instella, “I do not exist. The Progenitors are gone. What is Dhryn now?”

Not a Haven Dhryn.
A more worldly creature.
Mac knelt beside him. “Not all the Progenitors are gone,” she pleaded, using the
oomling
tongue. “Come with me. Don’t let the Ro win.”

His eyes closed and she thought he’d given up. Then, slowly, one hand reached for the umbrella. She hurried to put it in his grasp and help him stand.

If it hadn’t been for his wheezing breath and halting, but steady steps, she might have walked with the dead. Certainly the smell was there. Mac ignored it. Normal Dhryn body posture, slanting forward at almost forty-five degrees, worked in her favor. Her right shoulder fit nicely under his left uppermost arm, which lacked a hand. He gripped the umbrella in his right upper and middle hands. As for his mass?

Right now, it was less than hers. She supported a body that shouldn’t be alive. And they made progress. The Wasted knew the ship and didn’t hesitate as he led her back to the hangar. The trip was shorter than she remembered, without side trips to investigate every door.

Mac listened for the Ro, the skin at the back of her neck crawling with fear. No way to hide or outrun the creature now. Not with the Wasted; not in these open halls.

They turned a corner and Mac gave a sigh of relief, recognizing the final stretch of corridor. “Almost there,” she said.

A voice in her ear, strained with effort. “Why are Humans at Haven?”

“Long story,” she temporized. “Let’s get out of here first.”

She hadn’t remembered the door to the hangar being open, but Norris could have left it that way, to help her get through quickly.
No choice.
Mac and the Wasted shuffled forward.

They passed the pile of cloth and rotting bone, neither glancing in its direction.

The lev came into view.
Nothing had ever looked so good,
Mac decided, trying not to hurry. Her blood pounded in her ears, making it hard to listen for what might be hiding between the shuttles as they passed.

“That is your ship?” said the Wasted.

“Yes—” Mac’s voice broke as she saw the form crumpled in the lev’s shadow. “Wait here,” she said, disentangling herself from the being’s hold as carefully as haste allowed.

Then she ran to Norris.

He’d almost made it,
she realized in horror, dropping to her knees beside the body at the foot of the lev’s blood-splattered ramp. Her hands didn’t know where to touch. There was hardly anything of him not sliced apart, hardly anything but his face still recognizable. Red arched in all directions.

Slime glistened.

“Human!”

Mac whirled, unable to credit that deep bellow had come from the Wasted, amazed to see him rushing toward her, using his hands and stumps as well as feet. He reared up, drew in a deep breath, then retched. She flung herself away and back as acid spewed forth from his mouth, to coat a nightmare from thin air.

Mac writhed on the floor, hands tight over her ears, but it made no difference. The sound penetrated her nerves until she could barely think. She tried to see what was happening.

The Wasted had dropped flat on the deck, limbs outstretched.

While some
thing
died.

The sound finally stopped. Mac took a shuddering breath, then two. She rose to her knees, her feet, and staggered forward. All the while her mind tried to deny what she saw.

Mac didn’t see how this thing in front of her could have walked at all. Its body, if there was one, was hidden beneath a convulsion of limbs, all distinct, drawn into fetal-like curves. Tatters of material, glittering metal flakes, fibers—all drifted in the air above it, as though not ready to succumb to gravity and fall with the body they’d once wrapped. She saw no head.

There were the claws, though, long, straight, and needle sharp.
Scoring moss and soft wood like a fork; slashing through furniture, fabric—and flesh.
There were limbs like wings or fins within the mass, others thin and knotted on one another, fingertips and bony clubs and cable-thick hooks . . .

With utter calm, Mac turned her head to one side, threw up the nutrient bar and water, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then returned to examining the Ro’s servant.

None of it made sense.
It shouldn’t function, not with this tangled, nonsensical structure. The strangest alien form—the weirdest Earthly ones—at least looked as though they could work.
This?

“Human?”

How could she forget the Dhryn?
Mac hurried to his side. He was trying to rise and she helped as best she could. “There could be more,” he warned her, his voice barely audible.

“You’re right. I know.” She passed him the umbrella and they made their slow way around the two bodies.

The short ramp took the last of his strength. She managed to get him inside before he collapsed on the floor of the lev. Mac took the umbrella and used it to methodically sweep the air inside the craft. Once sure they were alone, she closed the door and threw the lock to keep it that way.

She rested her forehead against the door. “We won’t leave you here, Norris,” she whispered.

Could they leave at all?
Taking the pilot’s seat, Mac stared helplessly at the console. The console stared back, its dozens of winking machine eyes giving no clue as to their purpose, daring a mere biologist to guess and blow herself up.

“Are you a pilot?”

“No.” She glanced at the Wasted in sudden hope. “Are you?”

“I do not—”

“Exist,” she finished impatiently. “Yes, I know. Before that. Can you operate this ship?”

“Before . . .” The word was accompanied by a mournful vibration Mac felt through the floor. “I was, in your terms, captain of the
Uosanah
.”

Finally, trapped with someone who had the right skills.
“Then you can use this.” She waved her hands over the incomprehensible console.

He pulled himself to a sit on his lowermost arms, his head beside hers. It drooped from his neck, as though too heavy for it. As he studied the console, she watched a new fracture open behind his ear and ooze blue. “No,” he said at last. “Even if I could decipher these controls, they are locked.”

“Oh.”

“The ship is transmitting.” A sticklike finger moved forward and pressed a button. A shaky voice filled the lev.

“This is Dr. Norris, on board the derelict
Uosanah
. Mayday. Mayday. We’re in the central hangar. Dr. Connor has confirmed the presence of Myrokynay. Repeat, we have Ro on board. Mayday. Mayday. I’m setting this on auto and going back for her. Please hurry. This is Dr. Norris—”

The Wasted pressed the button again to silence the voice.

“He made it here,” Mac said numbly.
And went back for her.

“Was Norris all his name?”

She shook her head, trying to wrap her grief and guilt around an alien point of honor. “We hadn’t been properly introduced. Not yet.”

The Wasted lifted his head very slightly—
a bow
. “Then you must—” a gasping pause, “—learn all of his names, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.”

“I will,” she promised.

He sagged down where he was, between the seats, his face half under the console. Mac moved her feet to make more room for his left arms. She looked around, but couldn’t see anything on the small ship to use to make him more comfortable. Norris had thrown his bags in the corner, but they were too small to be useful bedding.

Norris.
Mac pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around them.

Mac looked at the locked door, thinking of what lay beyond.
How didn’t matter.
“You saved our lives,” she whispered. “Thank you.”