Survival (53 page)

Well aware hers were the first Human eyes to see the Dhryn's inner sanctum, Mac did her best to memorize everything she saw. The shroud material was everywhere, of course, but here spirals of silver began to overlay the black, illuminated so they appeared to be in motion. There were words picked out in silver as well, as if the spirals were the breath carrying the sound. Between the bodies of her escort, and Brymn, Mac couldn't make out more than snatches of what was written. It seemed a combination of historical record, exhortations to enjoy life, and the occasional complaint about building standards.

Then Mac remembered. Brymn had told her he'd recorded Emily's name in the hall of his Progenitors. At the time, she'd taken it as metaphor. Obviously, she'd been wrong.

Was
her
name here?
If so, what did the other Dhryn think of it?

Not that she'd have a chance to find out on this trip
. Mac didn't understand the urgency of their escort, but there was no slowing the pace. When she'd attempted to do so, they'd grabbed her as if to carry her along. Only a loud protest—and a well-aimed kick—had put her back on her feet.

The spirals and their utterances grew denser and denser until the silver was almost blinding. The air grew as fresh as a summer's day, though the scent of growing things was replaced by an unknown but pleasant spice. Mac belatedly thought to look for more mundane aspects such as lighting fixtures, ventilation grates, and doorways, but unsurprisingly the Dhryn technology eluded her.
Well, security wasn't hidden.
Since leaving the archive, tiny round vidbots had hovered in every corner. Several had followed overhead, as if accompanying them. Mac had expected no less on the route leading to the Progenitors.

She would have liked to ask questions, prime among them: why was she, an alien, being brought here?
On the other hand, this way she couldn't get into trouble by saying the wrong thing—until she stood in front of the leaders of the Dhryn
.

There, Mac would let Brymn do the talking.

As if their escort had heard her thoughts, one came close to her on the opposite side from Brymn. “Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor. I am Parymn Ne Sa.”

Two hands missing, two extra names.
Hopefully coincidence,
Mac thought. “Accomplished,” she said politely, doing her utmost not to pant. They hadn't slowed during this consultation. “I take the name Parymn Ne Sa into my keeping.”

“Gratified.” Parymn seemed older than the rest, grimmer somehow, although, like Brymn, he favored lime-green eye ridge paint with paired sequins. He was frowning.
Not at her,
Mac guessed, but as if worried by some task she represented. Sure enough, “There is a strict protocol which must be followed when intruding on the space of a Progenitor. Failure to do so will have—extreme consequences.”

Given their entire escort carried weapons in all six hands, Mac had little doubt about the nature of such consequences. “I trust your guidance,” she said, determined to put the onus on her escort instead of Brymn. That worthy was still bouncing along, seeming oblivious to the importance of the occasion, or the armament surrounding them.
Great.
Mac thought.
Stuck with a famished student sniffing pizza
.

Parymn sheathed the weapons in four of his six hands, using those in a gesture Mac recognized from Brymn's fits of anxiety. “Your ability to speak is remarkable, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor, and there is no doubt you are Dhryn, but—but—you lack the physical equipment required to—” Words seemed to fail him, then: “I fear you will offend simply by being what you are.”

At some point, the ridiculousness of the universe rendered all other things moot.
Smiling, Mac shook her head and patted Parymn on one arm, as familiarly as she would Brymn. “Don't worry. You said the Progenitors invited me—they must know what I am.”

“Knowing isn't the same as believing.”

A philosopher?
Mac raised a brow, impressed. “Should I wait outside, then? I have no wish to offend them.”

“It is too late. Your presence is expected.”

Brymn, who'd seemed oblivious, suddenly jumped into the conversation. “Gloom and doom,” he challenged. “That's all you
erumisah
ever say. If I'd listened to you, I'd never have studied the past, never have traveled, never learned—” Somehow, Mac managed to transform an artful stumble into a firm kick at what would have been an ankle on a Human leg. Brymn gave her a look, then closed his mouth.

Parymn didn't appear to notice. “It is our role to consider the consequences, Academic, and guide the growing generations of Dhryn along the safest path. In this case—ah. We have arrived.”

Mac's eyes widened. The shroud-and-silver walls and ceiling continued through the entranceway ahead, but the passage itself was blocked by a mammoth vaultlike door of gleaming metal. Curiously, it was arched by gaps wide enough for Mac to squeeze through on either side and at the top. As she puzzled at the point of a door surrounded by holes, an inset within the door opened, nicely Dhryn-sized and shaped.

“Follow me,” Parymn said, moving to the head of what now became a single file column of two Dhryn guards, Brymn, Mac herself, then two more guards. The rest of their escort took up stations on either side, apparently remaining behind. The 'bots rose to the ceiling as if ordered to wait as well.

They walked through the door, itself fifteen of Mac's steps deep, which opened into a passage both metal-scented and cold. She tried to see past Brymn, but could only make out a brightening ahead. Their escort moved too slowly now, as if there was some barrier ahead to be passed. Mac would remember the rhythmic movement of warm air past her face and neck, then back again, for the rest of her life.

Between one footfall and the next, she left what she understood or imagined, to enter a place nothing could have prepared her to meet.

Her eyes lied, frantic to make sense of what they saw. Mac was several paces into the Chamber of the Progenitors before she appreciated that what she thought was the ceiling was a shoulder, that what she thought a floor was a
hand
.

Believing and knowing weren't the same at all.

You've swum with whales,
Mac reminded herself, even as the hand drew them away from the door, as steady and level as any machine.
At least they weren't underwater.

Though they might have been. She wrenched her eyes from a vista of hills and valleys cloaked in dark blue skin, mottled with ponds of shining black liquid, and stared at what else lived here.

Her first impression was of rather silly-looking pufferfish, her mind fighting for equivalents. Her second was that the creatures looked nothing like fish at all. They were similar in size to herself, a relief after the shock of the Progenitor, but their oblong bodies were inflated, as if filled with gas. Indeed, many were drifting overhead like lumpy balloons. Fins lining the back and sides stroked at the air, guiding them in all three directions. Boneless arms hung below those drifting, as if they'd lost their function.

Most were crowded around the ponds, their bodies flaccid and low to the “ground,” arms in the liquid. Mac couldn't tell if they were somehow taking it up or replenishing the Progenitor's supply. They had heads, but smoothed, so only the mouth and nostril openings remained. They varied in color, but all were pastel, like so many faded flower petals strewn about by the wind.

Air moved through Mac's hair, and back again. Over and over. The Progenitor's
breathing
.

From a world of only technology, she'd been transported to a wonderland of only biology. Mac crouched to brush her fingertips over the palm of the hand supporting them. Warm, rubbery, muscular. Like Brymn's.

“That is not permitted!” This urgent whisper from Parymn.

Mac looked up from her crouch.
He had to be kidding.
However, she stood. “My apologies, Parymn Ne Sa,” she said absently, looking around.

Two pufferfish Dhryn intercepted them and hovered, close enough for Mac to touch, their arms—no, they were more like tentacles—groping the air toward her as if hunting for something lost. Disconcerted by the eye-less, silent beings, Mac eased back as much as she could. Parymn made a shooing motion with his upper arms and the two veered away with unexpected speed.

“Who are they?” she whispered to Brymn.

He blinked. “Who are who?”

Mac pointed to the flying forms now on all sides. “Them! Who are they? Those two seemed interested in me.”

Brymn gave a low hoot. “Not who, what. Those are the Hands and Mouths of the Progenitor. They cannot be ‘interested' in you, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor, or in anything else. They no longer think for themselves.”

“Then they weren't always like this,” she said, fighting back horror.

“It is an honor to become one of those who tends Her,” Parymn broke in, his stern look at Mac intended to quell more questions.

Her
. They were passing over what had to be the torso, as if the Progenitor brought them up and along her body. Mac moved as close to the edge of the palm as she dared, in order to see over the edge.

The blue skin below was smudged with white, as though every ripple was frosted with sugar. Mac fought the imagery to understand what was below. Not sugar crystals.
Oomlings!
They were erupting through the Progenitor's skin—thousands upon thousands upon thousands. As they appeared, they were being swept up in the arms of the pufferfish Dhryn, to be taken away into the distance.
To the nurseries?

But their own destination almost shattered Mac's trained observer's calm. She glanced up and saw it coming. All she could do was grip Brymn for comfort and try to breathe without screaming.

Beneath nostrils the size of train tunnels whose breath filled this chamber, the Dhryn-who-had-been smiled at Mac with its normal mouth, blinked its normal eyes one/two below their sequined ridges, and said in its quiet, normal voice: “Welcome, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

The remnants of the face were embedded in a wall of blue flesh. The hand came to rest with its fingertips pressed against that wall, a platform as solid beneath Mac's feet as the deck of the
Pasunah,
and as much a lie. She spared an instant to long for a piece of honest granite, then deliberately let go of both Brymn and her fear. “Thank you—” She glanced at Parymn for the right honorific, but it was Brymn who answered.

“Progenitor! It is I, Brymn.”

As Brymn was bouncing up and down, much as he'd done on the walkway to the shore, Mac waited to see the reaction. Their escort, predictably, looked highly aggrieved, bodies lowering in threat. The Progenitor, however, hooted. “Yes, I can see that. Welcome, Brymn,” she/it said in a soft voice, higher-pitched and with a slower cadence than that of other Dhryn Mac had heard. “You have done well.”

“I—have?” Brymn turned to Mac and picked her up with three arms. The rest were busy flailing about. “Did you hear that,
Lamisah?
” he bellowed in her face, squeezing tightly enough to threaten her ribs again. “I've done well!”

Mac fought for air and considered a timely kick. Fortunately, Brymn put her down before either became an issue. “Congratulations,” she gasped, keeping an eye on the weapons all too nearby.

“Does this mean . . .” Brymn's voice faded into a whisper, “. . . dare I hope?” Mucus trailed from his nostrils and one hand groped blindly for Mac. Not understanding, but assuming it was an improvement over being grabbed, she took and held it. Then, in a heart-wrenching tone, he asked:
“Grathnu?”

The Progenitor's eyes were identical to Brymn's. As they moved to pin Mac in their gaze, she was struck by the warmth that could be conveyed by yellow and black.
“Grathnu,”
she agreed, then shocked them all. “To be served by Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

Brymn's hand left hers.

Mac coughed into the ensuing silence. “If I may, Progenitor, Brymn is much more deserving of such an honor,” she said cautiously, making every effort to focus on that disembodied face and ignore the city-sized body that supported it.

A whine of weapons being activated. “You mustn't argue with the Progenitor!” Parymn shouted furiously.

“I'll argue with anyone I please!” Mac shouted back, then closed her mouth.

With a minor shake, the floor space doubled. Another hand rested beside this one. “Leave us, Parymn Ne Sa.”

The older Dhryn bowed without a word, then glared at Mac as he and the remaining guards obeyed, climbing on the Progenitor's other hand. They were whisked away,
hopefully,
Mac thought,
to the door
.

She had to smile.

“What amuses you, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor?”

Something about the Progenitor's gentle tone made Mac grin even more broadly and admit: “I was wondering if you ever clap your hands, Progenitor.”

The laugh was only on the face—likely wise, given that otherwise it would shake the world of all those Dhryn below and startle the
oomlings
during their first breath of life. Mac imagined there must be a small respiratory shunt formed, to allow the mouth to form sound so the Progenitor could continue to communicate with other Dhryn.
Quite the metamorphosis.

“A habit I left behind,” the Progenitor assured her with a smile of her own.

Along with mobility, independence, and the sky,
Mac thought, feeling the weight of that choice—or was it a choice? Brymn had said they only knew the next Progenitors when those individuals Flowered into their final state.