Survival (35 page)

Four names. That would mean something to a Dhryn, but for all of Mac's research into the species, she'd yet to find anything to explain what that might be.
Best err on the side of being impressed,
she told herself. Mac remembered Brymn's reaction to her names and clapped her hands once. “I am honored to take the name Dyn Rymn Nasai Ne into my keeping.” Courtesy having served its function and started them talking rather than shooting, she dropped it like a three-days' dead salmon. “What's going on? Why do you have weapons aimed at my companions?”

“We must leave,” another Dhryn boomed.

“Fine. I don't want to stay here either. Put away those things!” This to all of them.

Mac wasn't sure who deserved the award for moving most slowly, but after everything stubby, pointy, or stealthy was off its target, she heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Dyn replied with a firm: “You must come with us, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

Tit for tat,
Mac thought. She was spending far too much time lately arguing while filthy and tired. It made her inclined to be difficult, but in this case, being difficult might be safer.
Where was Nik? Where was Brymn?
were questions she couldn't ask strangers. “I cannot go with you. I require—” she stopped herself just in time.
No point saying “medical treatment” to a Dhryn.

She was scrambling for something plausible the aliens couldn't provide when the other woman, who'd been silent until now, filled in with a perfectly straight face: “—the Rite of Manumission. It's required before she may venture farther from her home.”

The Dhryn's tiny mouth flattened into a thin line of disapproval. “I have never heard of such a thing. Humans travel from this place constantly.”

“Not one as important as Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

Well done!
Mac tried to keep a straight face. If the Dhryn didn't concede, it would diminish her importance after he'd just acknowledged it before witnesses.

And if there was one trait their species seemed to share, it was pride.

Someone had called ahead, Mac decided.
Ask no questions,
seemed the likeliest command given. Politeness was one thing; this bland acceptance of her torn clothing and barely scabbed scrapes by everyone they passed in the halls of this nondescript building was quite another. It was disturbing, as though in a way their inattention made her as invisible as the Ro.

“In here, ma'am.”

“Mac,” she said, entering the door the woman held open. “It's hardly a secret now, is it? Please.”

That infectious smile. “Mac. You can call me Persephone.”

Mac gave her a suspicious look, but there was nothing but good humor on the other's ebony face. They'd all been relieved to squeeze together, Human to Human, in the small skim. Once the weapons were stowed beneath the seats, that is. The Dhryn had followed their rise into the traffic lanes, then kept pace around the rim of the way station to the inhabited area. For all Mac knew, the five aliens were still parked outside this building, whatever it was, waiting for her to finish the “Rite of Manumission.”

“That was quick thinking, Persephone,” Mac complimented as they walked into what appeared to be a deserted med-clinic.

“Part of the job description,” came the offhand response, but she seemed pleased. “There should be a gown in the cubicle over there, Mac. I'll call the doc in to dress those cuts.”

“Don't call anyone.” Mac's smile and greeting died on her lips as Nikolai Trojanowski stormed into the clinic, his face dark with anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Sir, the situation—” His look was nothing short of lethal. Persephone closed her mouth and, with a sympathetic glance at Mac, turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Mac frowned. “I was
supposed
to let them take me away?”

“Shh!” From his suit pocket, Nik pulled a thin silver rod, giving it a shake to extend it to a length of over two meters. With his weapon ready in his right hand, rod in his left, he proceeded around the room, swinging the rod so that it brushed ceiling and walls, moving so quickly Mac found it hard to keep safely out of his way. She watched the anger fade from his face as he worked, replaced by concentration.

When Nik was satisfied, he shook the rod one more time to shrink it to pocket-size. His eyes found and fixed on her. Behind the glasses, they were smudged with exhaustion, but fiercely alert.
Probably stimmed to the gills,
she thought uncharitably. “Low-tech,” he said, “but effective in an enclosed area.”

“Whatever works.” Mac couldn't believe she'd forgotten, even for an instant, that their foe could be hiding anywhere in plain sight. “You shouldn't blame your staff.”

“You're right,” he surprised her by saying. He leaned against the examination platform like a man conserving the last of his resources by any means possible. “I was trying to keep info splatter to an absolute minimum— which meant 'Sephe didn't know better than to back your decision.”

“Info splatter?”
Was no Human activity safe from jargon? “Have you heard anything more from Base?” she demanded, her voice feathering at the edges. “Any—names? Do they know I'm okay? What's . . . ?” Mac stopped herself. “I'm sorry. I'm anxious for news.”

His expression softened. “I know. I've asked for the—for a list. I wish I could tell you more.” When she kept looking at him, he continued, perhaps to comfort her. “Your people look to be good in emergencies: coolheaded, smart. I'm sure they did all the right things even before the rescue teams arrived.”

“Real ones, or more of yours?” Mac asked. “I did figure out those police were nothing of the kind, you know.”

A raised eyebrow. “Here we thought they were flawless. But yes, the rescuers were local.”

Mac realized with a sinking feeling he'd avoided one of her questions. “You did tell them I'm okay, didn't you? And my dad . . . You'd promised to call him.” Mac put a hand to her throat, something she'd thought only melodramatic movie heroines did until now, when it felt impossible to catch a full breath through the painful tightness of her throat. “Oh, god. You didn't tell him I was dead.”

“Of course not!”

All her doubt and fear must have shown on her face, because Nik spread his hands out and said with unexpected honesty: “I would have, Mac, if faking your death would have thrown the Ro off your trail. Enough people saw you launched into the ocean with Brymn to make it credible that you drowned.” When she began to sputter indignantly, he gave a faint smile. “Don't worry. Morality aside, it wouldn't have worked. Imagine the media uproar if the first and only Dhryn to visit Earth was killed. No, the Honorable Delegate had to make a very visible, very routine departure. When your friends catch the news and see Brymn escaped the attack at Base, and they know he took you with him, how could you be anything but well?”

Mac couldn't decide if she was more confused than relieved. “So what did you tell them? You had to explain my disappearance from the face of the Earth—”
literally!
“—somehow.”

He looked insufferably smug. “
You
, Dr. Mackenzie Connor, have sent reassuring vid messages to Base and to your father.”

Of course.
As she'd spent years working with people capable of that type of forgery and more, if they hadn't been busier using their skills to investigate the natural world, Mac felt herself blush. “What did you—did I—say?”

“Oh, you explained how you'd been picked up by a police boat. Confirmed, naturally, by the ‘police.' You related how Brymn was so unnerved by his brush with death—and you, so grateful for his help in escaping—that you accompanied him to the Consulate.”

“And?” Mac prompted when Nik paused, as fascinated by this skewing of events as she would have been watching a skim about to crash. There was the same sense of inevitable disaster.
Her friends and family would never believe this.

“And? As a parting gift,” Nik told her, “Brymn arranged for you to access files he'd stored at the Consulate in hopes of finding something to assist the search for Emily and identify those who'd attacked Base. Because of understandably tight security there, you can only access those files within the compound and they will not let you leave, then return. So you are staying as long as it takes. There was more—your confidence in Kammie, condolences and wishes to be kept informed, reassurances to your father. I can arrange for you to view the recordings, if you like.”

Mac gulped. “That's just—that's just—”

“Amazing?” he offered helpfully. “Brilliant?”

“Uncanny,” Mac said, staring at Nik. “I
would
do that.” They'd all believe it, too. Even her father, though he'd voice his opinion. She fought a wave of homesick-ness. “How could you know?”

His lips quirked. “You study salmon. I study people. Don't worry, Mac. We'll keep up ‘your' messages and cover your absence as long as necessary. Right now, we'd better get you to the Dhryn. They aren't the most patient beings and, with the Ro as adversaries, I can't argue.”

“Where's Brymn now?”

“He's aboard the
Pasunah,
waiting for you.” An unnecessary stress on the last word.

“He can wait.” Mac went to cross her arms, then decided against it when her rib protested. “I'm not leaving to go anywhere—especially a Dhryn ship—until I've cleaned up and had a Human doctor seal these cuts.”

He'd either anticipated her reaction or knew better than to argue. “Shower's that way,” Nik pointed with his chin. “It's got a sterile field. Thirty seconds ought to do it.” He swung the office pouch from under his shoulder to the platform. “Here. This is for you.”

“Supper? Is there time?” Mac said, trying to smile at her own joke.

“Sorry.” He patted the pouch. “Clothes, hopefully your size. The rest of your luggage is already on the
Pasunah
.” At her highly doubtful look, he smiled. “We had staff do some discreet shopping in the way station's stores while you were en route. Nothing fancy—don't worry. I did my homework.”

For some reason, Mac immediately resented his assumption she preferred plain.
Not that Nik had any reason to assume otherwise,
she admitted.

The idea of being clean made every scratch and bite on Mac's body itch. She looked at the shower longingly.
But first
. . . “This is going to take time to undo,” she waggled the end of the intricate braid at him.

“It's quite—thorough.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. “That bad?”

“I confess I'm curious what you did to annoy 'Sephe.”

Despite everything, Mac found herself grinning at him. “Let this be a warning to you. Never leave two bored women alone in a box.”

“Warning taken,” Nik said. “Here. Let me.”

Mac turned to offer him her back, standing close enough that his knee brushed her leg. “Just get it started, thanks. I can work out the rest in the shower.”

She felt him pick up the thick braid and run its length through his hands before his fingers began to puzzle at the knot at the end. “I had time to talk with Brymn on the way here,” Nik told her. With each word, his breath tickled her neck in a way that made Mac suddenly aware of a problem.

She liked the way his breath tickled her neck.

She liked it in a way that sent waves of shivering warmth into places that should have been politely noncommittal, thank you very much, given where she was and who he was.
Not to mention the why of it all.

Worse, she couldn't edge out of range of his breath without being obvious; by the movements of his hands, he'd found his way into the braid by now and was busy undoing it.

Mac gritted her teeth.
A cold shower
. “Did Brymn tell you anything more about the Ro?” she asked.

“Nothing to help us find or contact them. We'll probably learn more from the shroud the Dhryn used over your box.”

The pile of dark fabric
. “What was it?”

“Apparently the Ro can limpet themselves—more accurately, some kind of travel pod or suit—to other vehicles in either an atmosphere or in space. The Dhryn claim their shroud emits an energy pulse of some kind on contact that interferes with the attachment mechanism, shaking loose any such hitchhikers. It forms the basis of their defense for
oomlings
. They also told us they believe it stuns or kills any Ro inside, but that's never been confirmed. They haven't been able to retrieve any of these devices or their passengers.”