Survival (41 page)

She'd finished “Ghouls,” unsure if it was intended as fiction or advertising for the country inn near Sebright where apparently such visitations took place, but only on summer weekends, and had started scanning through more of Brymn's articles when the door to the corridor abruptly opened. It did so by retracting upward, a fact Mac rediscovered when the support behind her back slid away. Before she could fully catch herself, she was falling, but only as far as the Dhryn standing there.

Mac, her shoulders grasped by the being's lowermost hands and her forehead brushing the woven bands covering his abdomen, looked up and gave her best smile. “Hello.”

The being shifted his tray into two right hands and contorted his head so one eye looked down at her.
“Slityhni coth nai!”

Mac's heart sank.
Not Instella.
What had been the name of the captain? “Take me to Dyn Rymn Nasai Ne!” she said, as forcefully as she could from such an undignified and uncomfortable position.

The Dhryn reacted by pushing Mac up and forward out of his way. She landed on her hands and knees, mostly on the mattress which bounced as the Dhryn stoically climbed on and over it to carry his tray of spuds to the table.

“Wait!” She grabbed her remaining bottle of water and scrambled to her feet. “I need more of this!” Mac shook it, the water within gurgling loudly.

Job done, he was ignoring her, walking back toward the door. Mac launched herself in his way. The much larger being stopped, staring down at her. She couldn't read much on his face, which possessed sharper brow and ear ridges than Brymn's. His mouth was in a thin line.
Disapproval? Dislike? Impatience?

Bad spuds?
Mac thought wildly. She held up the bottle, pantomimed putting it to her lips to drink. “Water.”

No response, although he gave a look to the door that was, “I'm leaving as soon as I can” in any language.

She pretended the bottle was empty, then grasped her throat and made gagging noises, sinking down and rolling her eyes.

That seemed to get through. The Dhryn blinked, then said, very clearly, the only phrase in his language Mac actually knew:
“Nie rugorath sa nie a nai.”

With that, he walked around her and left. Mac didn't bother to turn to watch him climb over the mattress and go out the door, locking it behind him.

“ ‘A Dhryn is robust or a Dhryn is not,' ” she translated to herself, clutching the bottle and feeling fear seep into every bone. “Guess that means I've been adopted.”

It was easier than admitting their ignorance of Humans might have just condemned her to death.

16

 

 

 

M
AC KNEW she was stubborn. It wasn't her most pleasant characteristic, admittedly, though it had served her well in the past. She'd break nails before cutting a perfectly good rope to free a water-tightened knot. She'd wear out boots before wasting time to shop for new ones. And she'd exhausted the entire funding review committee at Norcoast with her seventeen-hours long personal plea to get Pod Six built and running the year she wanted it, not in a decade.

Since then, they'd been remarkably prompt with approvals.

Now, she might be dying.
But it would be on her terms,
Mac told herself again. It had become a mantra of sorts.
Her terms. Her way. If she died, it would because she decided to die.

The lights had gone off again; she'd slept, fitfully this time and on the floor by the bathroom, having pulled the mattress there. The spuds had gone through her system, all right—and had continued to do so at distressingly regular intervals for much of the ship's night.

Moisture she couldn't spare. Making the Dhryn's food a source she couldn't afford.

To avoid the temptation to eat the moist things regardless of the consequences, Mac had thrown the last of them in the shower. She hoped she'd have the strength to do the same when the next offering arrived.

It would be nice to have the strength to kick a Dhryn where it hurt, too, but she couldn't guarantee that.

When the lights came back on, Mac took her precious bottle and wove her way to the bedroom the Dhryn had given her. The dizziness wasn't a good sign, but she was healthy. Had been healthy. She was good for hours yet.

Then . . . there were drugs in the medical kit—enough for perhaps another day's grace.
After that?
Mac rubbed her arm over the spot where Nik had implanted the bioamplifier.

They'd find whatever was left of her—eventually.

Mac eyed the stack of mattresses and settled on the floor rather than climb up. She pulled out her imp, intending to make another recording. What she'd say she didn't know, but it was something to do. The workscreen brightened in all its cheerful, Human colors over her knees, showing her the list of what she'd left to read.

Emily's personal logs.

Wrong imp
. Her brain must be addled. But instead of switching to the other, Mac watched her fingers lift and slide through the 'screen, keying the logs to open.

A puzzle. Mac grew more alert. She keyed in Emily's code from Base.

She tried a variety of old passwords Emily had used for other equipment.

All
Denied.

On a whim, she keyed in, “there's no sex in this book.”

Then, for no reason beyond hope, Mac entered her own Base code.

Accepted
.

So Emily had expected her to get these logs, if anything happened.
She'd wanted Mac to access them.

“What's going on, Em?” Mac whispered, fighting back the tears her body couldn't spare. She stared at the new display forming on her 'screen, at first making no sense of it.

These weren't personal logs. They were sub-teach data sets.

Labeled “Dhryn.”

Mac surveyed her preparations, one hand on the wall for stability. Her head tended to spin if she challenged it with quick movement. She'd blocked the bedroom door of her quarters on the
Pasunah
as best she could, using the mattresses and some crooked metal poles that had been standing in a corner. She'd found what she needed in the medical kit:
Subrecor
. Its tiny blue and white capsules were familiar to students of every age, allowing access to the subconscious learning centers. Those in the kit were larger than any Mac had seen before.
Perhaps spies had to learn more quickly
.

In this instance, she agreed, uneasy about making herself helpless while on the Dhryn ship. Even if it might be her only chance to be understood.

Mac took her imp, feeling for the dimples that said it was hers, and switched the 'screen to teachmode. In that setting, the display went from two dimensions to three, hovering over the mattress like a featureless, pink egg. She'd already queued Emily's data sets—all of them. She might not have this opportunity again.

For more reasons than the obvious,
Mac assured herself.

One sip of water left in the bottle. One capsule. Mac swallowed both without hesitation, then lay down on the floor with her head within the “egg” of the display. She closed her eyelids, still seeing pink. The input would be delivered as EM wave fronts stimulating the optic nerves, shunted to the portions of the brain responsible for memory as well as those of language and comprehension.

All she had to do was relax and let the drug turn off cognition and will until the data sets had been dumped into her brain.

. . . not unconscious, but at peace . . . not paralyzed, but detached . . .
Mac had never enjoyed being sub-taught, though many she knew did. Her father had told her teachers that she'd never liked taking a nap either.

The kaleidoscope began, flashes of light and color representing the data being transmitted. Normal
. . . familiar . . .

Mac writhed without movement; screamed without sound.

Numbness spread from their tips, as though whole sections of her mind were being sliced and rebuilt.

As Mac plunged helplessly into an inner darkness, a cry built up until it finally burst, sending her into oblivion.

How perverse, to be drowning when dying of thirst.
“Mac! Mac!”

She gasped and found air through the liquid spilling over her cheeks and neck. Her eyelids were too heavy to lift; Mac rolled her head toward her name. “. . . argle . . .” she said intelligently.

More liquid splashed against her face, filling her nose and mouth at the same time. Some landed on her eyes, making them easier to open as Mac sputtered, caught between swallowing and breathing.
Water?

A gold-rimmed darkness filled her view, easing back at her startled cry to reveal a face that cleared to familiar when she blinked her eyes.
Brymn?

“Ah, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor. You had me worried. You are such fragile beings.”

“Brymn?” she managed to croak. Mac blinked again and focused beyond the anxious and silk-bedecked Dhryn. Same room. The door looked like it was in the wrong place.

He noticed her attention and gave a low hoot.
Amusement?
“You'd blocked the entrance, so I had to push a little harder. The
Pasunah
is a flimsy ship.”

“Flimsy . . . not good word . . . about our transport,” she managed to reply, starting to sit up. Four strong hands made it easier. “Thank you,” Mac said, resting her shoulders against the mattress stack. She licked her lips.

“Do you require more?” Brymn lifted a bucket with one of his free hands, water sloshing over the top.

Famine or feast,
Mac told herself, finding herself thoroughly damp from head to toe. Sure enough, a second, empty bucket stood nearby. He must have poured it over her. The tissues of her mouth were absorbing the moisture as gratefully as cracked soil soaked up rain. Mac licked her lips. “That's enough for the moment. Much better. Thank you. How did you know?”

Brymn sat, his mouth downturned. “I gave those in authority a list of Human requirements, Mac. They didn't understand these were essential for your survival. Instead, they regarded them as mere preferences, an imposition at a time when all aboard worry that your presence attracts the Ro. There was talk of leaving you behind.”

Mac studied his face. “You don't mean at the way station, do you?”

“No, Mac.”

Somehow, she found a smile. “If it wasn't for you, Brymn, I might have been dead soon anyway.” Mac winced.