Survival (21 page)

Hours later, Mac pressed her hand to the door release of Pod Three with a relief so close to pain she couldn't tell the difference. She'd half expected to find the walkways crowded despite the driving rain, but she'd staggered to the pod without seeing anyone but a family of orcas, breaching in the inlet. All she wanted from life at this moment was a roof and dry floor. And to get her boots off, if humanly possible. Everything and everyone else could wait.

Unfortunately, everyone else was waiting inside Pod Three.

Mac blinked stupidly at the sight that greeted her as the door opened. The corridor was lined three deep with people on each side, most shouting in confused, though joyful, unison when they saw her.

One shout penetrated the rest. “Mac! Where the hell have you been? We've got search parties out—the police—”

It took a second before Mac could put a name to the almost hysterical voice.
Kammie? The unflappable?
She winced with guilt as that worthy burst through the crowd toward her, arms flailing and eyes wild. “Ah. Sorry to alarm everyone,” Mac said. “I'm fine. I'll explain later.”
Once she found the energy to dream up a plausible story
. “Was Brymn okay through the excitement?”

“Brymn? Excitement?” Kammie seemed stuck on repeat.

Another voice interjected helpfully: “Still snoring.”

Mac found herself grateful for the support of the doorframe. “Glad someone was.”

The rising babble of concerned, relieved voices made it impossible to carry on a conversation. Several hands took over the work of the frame and her sagging muscles, guiding Mac forward into the blissfully dry and warm, if noisy, building.
But why were they all here?
She fought to stand still so she could search their faces, dismayed by what she saw.

“Em?”

She might have dropped a stone into a tidal pool, the way silence rippled outward from her question. The few faces turned her way seemed those of strangers.

“Where's Emily Mamani?” Mac demanded, shaking free of her caretakers.

Kammie, who looked to have aged a decade since yesterday, stared up at her. “We'd hoped she was with you, Mac.”

8

 

 

 

I
T WAS A nightmare from which no one would let her wake. Mac turned herself into an automaton, answering questions in the order they arrived, steeling herself against any emotion, hers or those around her. As if authorizing a barnacle survey, she sent divers to search under the pods, and skims to follow the tide. As if making arrangements for the delivery of fresh fruit, she called Emily's younger sister and gave the story as it stood:
Emily is missing. There's been no contact from a kidnapper. Yes, you'll be kept informed.

Mac didn't mention the slime coating every surface of Emily's quarters, the smashed furniture, or the blood. Kammie's report had been graphic. She'd been the only one inside Em's quarters and, given what she'd seen, it was no wonder she'd immediately called the local police. They'd ordered Em's quarters and Mac's office sealed. A forensics team had arrived and set up at dawn, their warn offs extending to corridor and terrace.

Mac had no doubt Trojanowski would be allowed to cross; she could not.

As if she'd lost her dearest friend, those around her lowered their voices and hovered when they obviously had other places to be. To be rid of them, Mac finally agreed to be escorted to the Base nurse.

Because she refused to believe she'd lost her dearest friend, Mac left the nurse the moment her face was treated for its burn.

Now, she stood before the door to her quarters, seeking answers in the only place left.
Emily had tried to warn her. Emily had known there was danger, that something was coming, that this wasn't about risks to aliens at distances Mac couldn't imagine, but to
them,
here, now.

Emily had been afraid, last night. She'd asked not to be alone and Mac hadn't understood even that much.

It wasn't locked. Mac hesitated, afraid Brymn wouldn't be able to help, afraid of losing hope. Recognizing the weakness, she raised her fist and knocked.

No answer.

Mac pressed her palm on the entry. For no reason she could name, she let the door open fully before she took a step inside.

Her hands covered her mouth, a painful pressure on the mem-skin now coating her burn.

They'd said Brymn was snoring
. She should have realized that none of them would know if a Dhryn snored in the first place.

From somewhere, Mac found the strength to snap the paralysis holding her in the doorway, taking three slow steps into the room. The form hanging in the middle of her living room was Brymn. She could tell that much by the patches of blue skin showing between the glistening threads wrapped around him, if little more. The threads led upward to form a thick knot stuck to the ceiling.

He was alive. That much was clear from the regular, low moaning.
It did sound a bit like snoring,
Mac decided numbly.

By rights, she should call the police immediately.

Instead, Mac locked the door behind her, then went to the com, leaning her back against the wall beside it. “Dr. Connor. Is Mr. Trojanowski back yet?”

“What are you doing out of bed?” Tie was back on com duty—a rock in a storm.

Mac rolled her head toward the familiar voice, her problem solver when skims failed to run or pods developed a list, but said only: “Trojanowski.”

Tie knew better than to argue. “Yes, he's back. He's been with the forensics guys. I'll hunt him up for you, Mac.”

“Thanks. I'll be in my—in Brymn's quarters.”

“There's been no more word about Dr. Mamani,” he said, almost making it a question.

“Keep me posted, Tie.”

Mac stayed propped against the wall beside the com, studying the Dhryn. The one eye she could see was closed. Unconscious—
or pretending to be
. The netting that held him had an artificial look, but she was no expert.

Mac wasn't a fool. She understood she was experiencing shock, made worse by physical exhaustion. She understood her calm was a brittle coating over emotions she wasn't ready to face. It didn't matter, as long as it let her find Emily.

Meanwhile, there was the problem posed by the netted Dhryn. Mac examined the threads. They looked sticky as well as moist. Stepping closer at last, she could see that each length had adhered to whatever it touched, puckering his skin into thick, tight creases.

“Explains the moaning,” she said to herself. His silks were on the floor, but laid out neatly, as if the Dhryn had been undressed before the attack. It wasn't that his assailants had been tidy. Other than the fabric, the contents of Mac's quarters showed the same disarray as Emily's.

The same trails of slime coated ceiling and walls.

A knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she asked without moving.

“Trojanowski. You sent for me, Dr. Connor. I've been trying to find you—” A pause. “May I come in?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.” Another pause. “What's that noise?”

“The Honorable Delegate.”

His voice lowered a notch. “What's going on, Dr. Connor? Let me in.”

Mac crossed her arms and stood beside the hanging Dhryn to wait.

Seconds later, her locked door opened. Trojanowski took a quick step in, then another to one side, slapping the door closed behind him. “Practiced that, have you?” Mac commented, noticing he was back to his student garb: T-shirt and jeans, complete with glasses.
The so-harmless look didn't play well anymore.

“What the—?” His expression went from shocked to guarded. “Is he conscious?”

“I don't know.” The “I don't care” was in her tone.

“Have you tried to find out?”

“I don't know anything about alien physiology, remember? I called you.”

He took what looked like a pen from his pocket and used it to poke one of the threads holding Brymn.

“What's that?” Mac asked. “A weapon?”

“It's a pen.”

“Oh.” She wasn't sure why she was surprised.
Too many old movies with Em
.

His lips quirked to one side. “This,” he pulled a black flattened disk from the same pocket, “is a weapon.” It disappeared against the palm of his left hand. Then he raised that hand and pointed two fingers at the ceiling, where the threads combined into the holdfast.

A narrow beam of intense blue shot up. Where it touched the threads, they shriveled and broke apart, to become bits of soot drifting through the air. Trojanowski played the beam over the massive knot, flaking away more and more until Brymn's body shifted downward a few centimeters.

He stopped and put away the weapon. “He's going to fall. Help me put the mattress under him.”

“That's my bed,” Mac protested, although she moved to help. “Was my bed,” she amended. It looked as though someone had attempted to shred the surface of the mattress, then glue it back together with slime.

They flipped it over before dragging it under the Dhryn. It was the work of seconds for Trojanowski to cut him down completely.
He fell like a salmon
, Mac decided,
limp but firm
.

Once Brymn was down, Trojanowski used his strange weapon to singe the ends of the threads wrapped around the being, careful not to ignite the mattress itself. Mac stood back and watched, her arms wrapped around her middle. She didn't remember breakfast. She thought she'd gulped something handed to her while she'd been at her desk. Her stomach wasn't happy about it.

Each singed thread continued to flake away along its entire length, as if losing some inner cohesion. Where they'd adhered to Brymn, the small dark pits of his skin oozed a clear liquid, presumably the source of an almost palpable odor, musklike and with a hint of sulfur, that began to fill the room. Mac took tiny breaths through her nose.
She'd smelled and seen worse.
Walking on bloated salmon corpses in July came to mind. No matter how carefully you put your feet, one would always pop.

“Good thing you checked on him,” Trojanowski said, continuing to work. He'd been watching her, too. She'd seen his eyes slip her way every few seconds, their expression inscrutable. “I might not have for another hour or so—might have been too late.”