Survival

SOMEONE had flung jewels at the night, the largest sapphire Earth, with her diamond Moon. There were others, smaller yet brighter, as if handfuls of cut gem-stones had spilled over that black silk to catch sunlight and return it as fire to the eye.

Mac’s fingers traced the cold metal outline of the vision. Her breath fogged the viewport and she wiped it clear. The Dhryn had given her this, a chance to watch as the Pasunah maneuvered from orbit into the appropriate orientation for the Naralax Transect.

Mac drew her lower lip between her teeth, involuntarily remembering his taste, her tongue exploring the tiny cut along the inside of her mouth. Here she was, off on a mission whose primary goal—to her—was apparently safe, sound, and on the wrong side, not to mention back at the way station. And the Dhryn wouldn’t or couldn’t tell her if Nik was alive.

The transition from normal space into a transect might be worth watching, but they hadn’t told her when it would occur. From what she’d seen through the viewport, Mac guessed the Pasunah was being guided into the required orientation by tugs. Once aligned with the desired transect, her engines would fire, sending the ship curving toward the Sun.

Not suicide, Mac assured herself. Part of the journey. Every schoolchild learned that the transects were anchored a few million kilometers outside the orbit of Venus and why. Inward and far enough from system shipping lanes—and the teeming populations of Earth, Mars, and the moons of the gas giants—to satisfy the most paranoid; close enough to make the trip to and from any transect itself economical. That this orientation also put outgoing freight from the Human system at the top of Sol’s gravity well was a factor they didn’t teach in school, but travelers foolish enough to buy round-trip tickets soon became acquainted with that reality. Mac had endured Tie’s diatribe on that matter quite a few times following his first, and last, outsystem vacation.

Economics couldn’t change where time was consumed in an intersystem trip. Travel through the transects was outside space-time itself. Mac couldn’t quite imagine it, but she did know they’d leave this system and arrive in another with no perceptible passing of subjective time. The captain would enter the desired exit into the ship’s autopilot just before they entered the transect—a crucial step since, in some manner fathomable only to cosmologists and charlatans, the act of specifying a particular exit created that exit.

Mac had read a popular article on the transects that compared their initial construction to training a worm to burrow outside space itself, leaving holes through which ships could slide. By that way of thinking, the Interspecies Union wasn’t so much a political entity as it was a worm trainer, the result being the greatest collaboration of technology and effort ever conceived by any, or all, of its member species.

Conceived might be too strong a word. The transects owed their beginning to a discovery made hundreds of years ago, and millions of light-years away. The details tended to blur between various species’ historical records—every species having members ready to claim they’d been about to make the crucial breakthrough themselves—but no one disputed that finding a key portion of the required technology, buried in the ancient rubble of a once-inhabited moon in the Hift System, had moved that breakthrough ahead by lifetimes.

Academics would probably always argue what might have happened if any species other than the Sinzi had made the initial discovery. But the coolheaded, cooperative, and highly practical Sinzi had been the ones to shape the Interspecies Union into its present form, perhaps due to their having multiple brains per adult body. The Sinzi had set the initial criteria for any species to receive a permanent transect exit, which was still in use today: desire for contact with other species, an independently developed space-faring technology, a demonstrated absence—or, at minimum, reliable control—of aggressive tendencies which might impact other species, and the willingness to adopt a mutual language and technical standards for interspecies’ interactions outside their own systems.

Meanwhile, Mac had to endure the trip to the transect. No one had told her where the exit to the Naralax Transect was in relation to Earth but, being one of the less traveled and her luck staying its stellar self, it might be on the far side of the Sun right now. At minimum, they had about forty million kilometers to cover to reach Venus’ orbit, and, to her knowledge, ships still obeyed the physics that involved staying below the speed of light. Maybe a week at sublight?

She had to read more, Mac decided. But it was like knowing the inner workings of a skim engine. You needed the knowledge most when the damn thing broke down, leaving you stuck where you couldn’t possibly gain the knowledge you needed. And you had to walk home as a result.

Though calling her accommodations on the Pasunah a “box” was a trifle unfair, Mac admitted, finally relaxed enough to explore her new quarters. Her first observation proved she wasn’t on a Human-built ship, had there been any doubt. There wasn’t a truly square corner in sight, the Dhryn, or their ship designers, having built everything at what appeared closer to seventy degrees. Considering how the aliens themselves stood at an angle, this seemed a reasonable consequence. The lack of perpendicular didn’t bother Mac. When she wasn’t in a tent, she was in her office at Base, where the pod walls curved down one side.

As if it could quiet her thoughts, Mac pressed the heels of both hands against her closed eyes. The damn Dhryn could have told her. They could have let her contact those who did know. They could have told her where they were taking her.

But no. They’d brought her to their ship without a single word, either in answer to her frantic questions or to give her orders. They hadn’t needed the latter. A Dhryn had picked her up as if she’d been a bag of whatever Dhryn carried home in bags, and only put her down here. While Mac had been sorely tempted, she’d kept her mouth closed over her objections and did her best to cling to the Dhryn, rather than struggle to be free. She’d preferred not to test her ability to splint her own limbs—or truly crack that bruised rib.

The skim ride had been fast and, from the frequent and violent changes of direction experienced by those within, probably broke every traffic regulation on the way station. If they had such things. Instead of stopping to argue with any authorities, the Dhryn must have flown right into their ship, because when the door of the skim had dropped open, Mac had found herself carried through a cavernous hold. The Dhryn had continued to carry her, reasonably gently yet with that ominously silent urgency, through tunnel-like ship corridors to this room.

While such treatment alone might be construed as a rescue, there was the troubling aspect of the door the Dhryn had closed behind her—a door with no control on this side that Mac had been able to find.

That door, Mac corrected herself, slowing her breathing, consciously easing the muscles of her shoulders and neck. There were two others. She picked the door on the wall to her left, relieved to spot a palm-plate, similar to the Human version but set much lower. It was colored to match the rest of the room, a marbled beige. Inconspicuous to a fault.

The plate accepted her palm, the door opening inward in response. Mac looked into what was patently a space for biological necessities. She’d assumed that much physiological congruence, since Brymn had stayed in her quarters without requesting modifications. Still, she took it as a positive note that the Dhryn had made provision for her comfort.

The remaining door was on the opposite wall. Mac found herself taking a convoluted path to reach it, forced to detour around the main room’s furnishings. She did a tally as she went: one table, six assorted chairs, ten lamps of varying size and color, and other, less likely items, such as a footbath and a stand made from some preserved footlike body part holding an already dying fern. Judging by the combination and haphazard arrangement, someone had shopped in a hurry. The Dhryn might as well have posted a sign outside the Pasunah saying: “Human passenger expected.”

It occurred to Mac that unsecured furniture meant the Pasunah maintained internal gravity throughout her run, not common practice on economy-class liners if she was to believe Tie’s vacation story. That, or the Dhryn had a peculiar sense of humor. She tugged a chair closer to the table as she passed. While she was curious about Dhryn furniture, Mac was grateful for something suited to her anatomy. At least it looked more suited than the one in Mudge’s waiting room.

The door opened into what the Dhryn must intend her to use as a bedroom, judging by the irregular pile of mattresses occupying its center. Spotting luggage on top, Mac wasted no time climbing up to see what had been provided for her.

Trying to climb up. She wedged her foot between two mattresses, but the ones above slid sideways each time she tried to pull herself up. Taking a step back, Mac frowned at the stack.

“Bring the mountain,” she muttered, then grabbed the nearest corner of the topmost, and yanked. The result owed more to pent-up frustration than power. She dodged out of the way as both mattress and luggage joined her on the floor.

The two cases bounced to a rest, a mismatched pair of the type so common on Earth that frequent travelers on transcontinental t-levs knew to pack short-range ident beacons.

Mac kicked off her slippers, flipped up the ends of her long skirt, and sat cross-legged on the mattress, pulling the smaller case toward her. Her hands lingered on its so-ordinary handle. She had to take on faith that it contained the very long-range beacon Nik had promised, believe that beacon could identify the destination the Pasunah chose, and trust that identification would reach only those who—

Oddly, the image steadied her. She may not have paid sufficient attention to astrophysics, but Mac understood the nuts and bolts of biological extinction, in all likelihood better than Nik—or most of humanity, for that matter. She was accustomed to attacking problems at the species’ level, not dealing with betrayal and violent death among those close to her.

The luggage’s lock was set to her thumbprint—easy enough to obtain from Base. Once she had it open, Mac gaped at the contents. Someone was obsessed with neatness. Each article was individually wrapped in a clear plastic zip, varying in size from the dimensions of her closed fist to the length of the luggage’s interior. Picking a smaller one at random, Mac unzipped it, hearing a tiny poof. Almost instantly the contents expanded to several times its original size, startling her into dropping what turned out to be a yellow shirt.

She took out each small packet, turning it over in her hands as she puzzled at what might be inside. Some, clothes, were easy enough. Lightweight, soft. Those Mac tossed behind her on the mattress.

“So there you are.” The imp Nik had told her about. Mac wasn’t the least surprised when it accepted her supposedly private code and a small workscreen indistinguishable in format from her own appeared in the air over her lap. “Snoop.”

As if it mattered now, Mac thought. The Ministry staff had seen Emily shoot their leader, likely had her in custody within moments. They’d use whatever drugs it would take to obtain an explanation; somehow Mac doubted ’Sephe and her colleagues required warrants or permission.

She took her own imp from the waist pouch beneath her blouse and compared the two. Identical to anyone else’s, at least on casual inspection. Her fingers unerringly found the dimpling along one edge of hers where she’d used a knife to pry off hardened drops of pine resin. Fair enough.

Mac put hers safely away again, then activated the other. Nik had said any recordings she made would be transmitted whenever the Pasunah entered a transect. If this was true—when had she begun to doubt everything she was told?—she had a chance to communicate that mustn’t be wasted.

“This is Mackenzie Connor,” she began self-consciously, stifling the urge to cough. “The Dhryn have taken me on their ship, the Pasunah, and we’re heading for the Naralax Transect. Well, I don’t know it’s the Pasunah—or the Naralax—but I’ll assume so until I have evidence to the contrary.” Her voice slipped automatically into lecture mode as she went on to describe her quarters and give what details she could see.

“Please tell my father I’m okay. Lie about where I am if you have to, but don’t let him worry. That’s Norman Connor. Base—Norcoast Salmon Research Facility—will have his contact information.

“Please tell Nik—Nikolai Trojanowski—that I have my luggage.” Blindingly obvious, since she was using their imp to send this, but it was easy to say. “And tell him . . .” Having reached the hard part, Mac paused the recording. Tell him what?

That he shouldn’t have kissed her? She frowned at the display. As kisses went, it had been spontaneous and as much her doing as his. An impulse brought on by stress or something more? Probably best forgotten.

Mac lined her water bottles—one half empty since she’d decided to drink first from a source she knew and two full—in front of her small pyramid of yellow-wrapped nutrient bars, then rested her chin on the table to check the result. She’d found the supplies in the larger luggage, along with boots, outerwear, and a daunting medical kit. Oh, there were self-help instructions on her new imp. They didn’t make owning needles and sutures any less intimidating.

Beside her attempts at reconstructing an Egyptian tomb, the table held what Mac presumed was either supper, breakfast, or lunch. She’d lost physiological track of time hours past. It had been waiting here when Mac came out of her bedroom. She’d immediately looked for the provider, but the door to the corridor was closed and still apparently locked.

She studied the six upright, gleaming black cylinders. Brymn had said they ate cultivated fungus, but these looked like no fungus—or food, for that matter—she’d ever seen. They were arranged on a tray of polished green metal, each sitting within a small indentation—presumably so they wouldn’t topple while being carried. Thin, hairlike strands erupted from the tops. At the right angle of light, the cylinders exhibited traces of iridescence, as if oil coated the outer surface. When she poked one with a cautious finger, it jiggled.

She sat up, grabbing a nutrient bar from the top of her pyramid. Unwrapping it, she broke it into three pieces, popping one in her mouth with a grimace. Oversweet, overfat, over everything. Emily always carried a dozen in her pack. Mac couldn’t stand the things. But they could keep you alive if you were lost in the bush.

Mac put the bottle down, capping it with deliberate care, and lined it up with the other two. A moment later, she stood in the Dhryn bathroom, her mouth already feeling dry. The “biological accommodation,” as the Instella term generically put it, was of the suck and incinerate variety. The sink, lower and much wider than Mac was used to, presumably to fit all seven Dhryn hands at once, had no drain or faucet. She lowered her left hand into it cautiously, feeling a vibration that warmed her skin. Sonics. The shower stall, sized for a Dhryn with a friend, looked to be the same.

Maybe this was something done on ships, she assured herself. After all, water would take up precious cargo space, so minimizing its use might be a priority. Then Mac thought back to the dinner at Base. Brymn had toasted her with a glass of water. She hadn’t seen him drink any.

Off the top of her head, she could name fifteen Earth species who obtained all the water their bodies required from their food. What if the Dhryn were the same?

“Great,” Mac said aloud. Humans weren’t. Worse, the nutrient bars were concentrated by removing water from their components. Digesting them would only add to her thirst. The three bottles from her luggage contained barely a day’s worth of water.

There were mirrors on two walls, sloping toward the middle of the room. Mac licked her lips and watched her elongated reflections do the same. “Our friends will be in for an unpleasant surprise if they leave me here too long,” she informed them.

After a quick search of her quarters to see if she’d missed a water outlet or container, studiously avoiding the hairy, black sticks, Mac spent a few minutes reminding the Dhryn they had a guest. When shouting and knocking on the door to the corridor failed to elicit a response, she chose likely objects and began pelting the door with them.

Mac stopped, having run out of disposable objects and temper. She waited, listening to her blood pounding in her ears, her breathing, a low hum that might be the ship, and hearing nothing more.

Without opening her eyes, Mac yawned and stretched. At the halfway point of her stretch, her rib reminded her yesterday hadn’t been a nightmare and her eyes shot open.

And half closed. The lights were bright again. She’d discovered the hard way that the Dhryn ship observed a diurnal cycle, having been caught in the midst of compulsive furniture arranging when the lights went out. Not quite out. She’d remained still, letting her eyes adjust, and discovered a faint glow coming from the viewport. Moving with hands outstretched and a step at a time, Mac had managed to reach it and look out. Sunlight was reflecting from some protrusions along the hull. She’d decided to find the safety of her bed before the ship turned and the room was completely dark, given the shards of ceramic, glass, and splintered wood product now littering the floor.

Now thoroughly awake, Mac rubbed her eyes and groped for her imp—the Ministry one, which she planned to use most. According to its display, she’d slept for eleven hours. According to the stiffness of her spine, most of that had been in one position. Likely fetal, she grinned to herself, even though her lips were dry enough to protest.

Amazing what a good sleep could do. Mac stretched again, with more care to the rib, then rolled to put her feet on the floor. Deck. She should start using ship words or Kammie would never forgive her.

Mac muttered to herself as she hurriedly unfastened the waist pouch—doubtless another reason her back was sore—and pulled out the crumpled sheet. Her brain must have been turned off yesterday. Remembering Nik, she blushed furiously. No excuse . . . she started to read line by line.

Ordinary composition . . . expected nutrient levels . . . high moisture content, which Mac found ironic under the circumstances . . . pollen levels reflective of last year’s poor conditions . . . and unfamiliar biological material from which had been extracted strands of DNA.

Kammie had provided the nucleotide sequence without further comment, but Mac could well imagine what the soil chemist would say if she were here. For the first time, Mac was glad she was alone. She had to trust Kammie’s discretion would keep her safe. “Sorry, Kammie,” she whispered as she studied the results. If the Ro had started chasing her, destroying Base in the process, simply because she might have received information from Brymn, how would they react to Kammie having some or all of their genetic footprint?

After some thought, and a carefully small swallow of water she held in her mouth as long as possible, Mac resorted to a trick so old it probably dated back to stone frescos on buildings. She activated the ’screen and went through her personal image files until she found the one she’d remembered: Emily, all smiles and arms wide, wrapped in some man’s oversized T-shirt, the shirt itself peppered with risqué sayings Mac didn’t bother to read. She avoided looking at Emily’s face as well, enlarging the image so she could concentrate on replacing the letters of the sayings with the letters of the sequence Kammie had found.

It was long, long enough that Mac didn’t try to make the substitution letter-by-letter. Instead, she had the imp transfer blocks. There were breaks in several areas. Incomplete, Mac realized as she worked, but perhaps sufficient to be the basis of a recognizable reconstruction. She had never worked with alien DNA but was aware that some, like this, contained unique nucleotides. Those alone might suffice to identify a home world.

If they examined the T-shirt closely. Returned to its normal size, even she could hardly tell the words had been replaced by tiny, seemingly random strings of letters. “Let’s see how smart you people are,” Mac said grimly. Setting her imp to record, she spoke as clearly as her coffeeless throat allowed: “I found a picture of Emily that might help you find her. As you can see, she likes unusual clothing.”

Feeling slightly foolish, Mac tapped off the imp and tossed the device on the mattress. For all she knew, Nik had obtained the same results during his scans of the landing site. It wasn’t as if they would brief her on their findings. Still, as Mac told her students every field season, better found twice than ever overlooked.

Time to see what was new in the world of the Dhryn. Mac wriggled off the mattress, a process complicated by the fact that her skirt had done its utmost to tie itself in knots as she slept. Mac extricated herself, salvaging the precious message in the process, and unzipped clothing packets until she found a pair of pants to accompany the shirt she’d opened earlier. Both pale yellow, unless the Dhryn lighting was off spectrum from what Mac was used to, but she didn’t care about the color. The style was loose enough for comfort and snug enough to move properly. Good enough.

Shower, then another mouthful of water. She’d gain the maximum benefit from frequent, small drinks. Until the third, and last, bottle was empty. Which would happen sometime today, Mac reminded herself unnecessarily.

As Mac padded through the main room, new clothes under one arm, she paused by the table. She’d had visitors again. A second tray of cylinders had joined the first, identical in every way. On the principle that if she was ever to eat them, it should be the freshest, she took the older offering—the tray closest to her pyramid—with her to the bathroom to dump it. Emily would be impressed, Mac assured herself.

Memory flooded her in darkness: the anguish of finding Emily gone, the horror of feeling Nik’s body sliding through her hands, disbelief at hearing Emily urging her to leave him and come away.

Of course, any explanation that justified Emily shooting Nikolai Trojanowski in the back could very well condemn Nik himself, and, through him, all of those who’d put Mac on this ship. The same people she had to trust would get her home again.

“There’s a choice for you,” Mac growled with frustration. There was that other possibility, one she cared for least of all. She shouldn’t have trusted either of them. “At this rate,” she muttered, “I’ll set a record as the worst judge of my own species.”

The interior of the enclosure resembled the sink, coated in a rather attractive geometric pattern of finger-sized—Human fingers—tiles in beige and orange. But the shower had additional tiles, metallic and angled as if to focus something on whoever stood within. Mac had never seen such a thing in a sonic shower.

Crouching down, Mac shoved the tray with its jiggling, hairy cylinders along the floor into the shower and stood back to see what, if anything, would happen.

The metallic tiles glowed fiercely, then what appeared to be shafts of blue-tinged light bathed the tray. The tiny hairs crisped and fell away; the cylinders themselves became limp and bent over. Before their tops hit the tray, they’d melted into puddles, producing tendrils of dark smoke.

Mac’s first thought was one of calm analysis. The Dhryn had a thick, cuticlelike skin covered in glands. A brief burst of radiant energy could well be a pleasant way to sear off old skin cells and exudate, dirt and germs being efficiently removed at the same time.

Hours and ten sips later, Mac leaned her head against the door to the corridor, resting her eyes. Waiting was always the hardest part. She’d taken care of herself. Fresh clothing, although she herself was becoming somewhat ripe between anxiety and an ambient temperature above what her body preferred. A nibble of nutrient bar, those careful sips of water, no unnecessary physical activity beyond rearranging the furniture once more. Aesthetics hadn’t been the issue; this time she was after clear passage between bathroom, window, and this door, along with a barrier of sorts in front of the table.

Mac’s luggage was packed, locked, and beside her on the mattress she’d dragged from the bedroom, positioning it across the door’s opening for her own comfort. She hoped it would also slow whomever might enter long enough for her to be heard—or for her to run out the door.

The waiting? She opened her eyes, her attention reactivating the workscreen, and blinked patiently at the appendix to Seung’s xenobiology text: “Common Misconceptions About Dining with Alien Sentients.”

The material was fascinating, something Mac hadn’t expected. In fact, under other circumstances, she would have tracked down the cited references to obtain the original sources for herself. It might be an introductory course, but Seung always challenged his students. She now knew enough about humanity’s immediate neighbors and important trading partners to have questions whirling in her head. Sentience, it seemed, was a palette biology loaded with tantalizing variety. Let alone the consequences to culture and technology.

“Why shouldn’t you put a Nerban and a Frow in the same taxi?” Mac whispered. “Because the former sweats alcohol and the latter sparks when upset. Ka-boom!” It would be funnier over a pitcher of beer.

She caught herself giving serious consideration to a sabbatical at one of the prominent xenobiology institutions, like UBC, and brought herself back to the “research” at hand.

Predictably, the Dhryn had been mentioned in passing as “a rare visitor, largely unknown in this area of space,” part of a lengthy list. The text claimed there would be over two thousand species added to the Interspecies Union before the end of the school term and recommended students sign up for Xenobiology 201 as soon as possible.

Reading the appendix on Dining proved amusing, especially the anecdotal accounts of what shouldn’t have been offered certain alien visitors, but Mac was disappointed to find no clues to her present situation.

Putting away her imp, Mac snared the tray with her toes and dragged it closer, the cylinders jiggling gracefully as they came along for the ride. The kit at her side contained treatments for allergic reactions and food poisoning. The medical info in her imp hadn’t said anything about their effectiveness on a Human who’d eaten Dhryn food.

Arguing with herself was pointless. Her natural desire to postpone the inevitable experiment couldn’t override the simple fact that she’d be better able to survive an adverse reaction sooner rather than later. Another day and she’d be dangerously dehydrated. As it was, her persistent thirst showed she was close. And the last bottle was down to one quarter full.

No, Mac told herself, eyes fixed on the tray, she might as well get it done. She’d made a brief recording about the lack of water, to warn anyone else who might land in a similar situation. And so they’d know what had happened if her recordings stopped in a couple of days, Mac added with a twisted smile.

As for the food? If this was all the Dhryn would have for her to eat, she had to know if her body could tolerate it. If not, recording a call for help might be her only chance of survival—and that recording would only be sent when they entered the transect.

Step one. After her experiment with the Dhryn shower, Mac wasn’t going to risk herself without due care. She chose the outside of her left arm as most expendable and pressed it against one of the cylinders.

It felt cold, which didn’t mean it was chilled. Room temperature, Mac concluded. She examined the skin that had touched the food. No reddening or swelling. She brought her forearm close to her nostrils and sniffed.

Step two. She picked up one of the cylinders, doing her best not to react to its slimy feel or rubbery consistency, and brought it to her mouth. Slowly, fighting the urge to vomit—a potentially disastrous loss of fluid— she stuck out her tongue and touched it to the side of the cylinder.

Her tongue might be too dry. Mac brought her tongue back inside her mouth, letting its tip contact what saliva she had left, then, cautiously, she moved that saliva around so it contacted all the taste buds on her tongue.

BLAH! Mac barely succeeded in keeping her gorge in her throat. God, it was bitter. Putting down the cylinder, she crushed a bit of nutrient bar in her hand and licked up the crumbs. The sweetness helped, barely. She resisted the urge to take another sip. Thirty minutes until her next.

Step three. Mac breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth, centering herself, slowing her heart rate from frantic to tolerably terrified. Then she picked up a cylinder and took a bite.

BITTER! Before she could spit it out, moist sweetness flooded her senses as her teeth fully closed. Startled, she poked the jellylike mass around in her mouth. A tang of bitterness remained, but the overall impression was of having bitten off a piece of . . .

. . . overripe banana. Not that flavor, but the same consistency and texture. This taste was complex, more spicy than bland, and seemed to change as the material sat in her mouth. A good sign, Mac thought, chewing cautiously. The enzyme in her saliva was acting on what had to be carbohydrate. The moisture in the mouthful was more than welcome.

She swallowed. When nothing worse happened than the impact of a mouthful thudding into her empty stomach, Mac examined the cylinder. Where she’d bitten it, glistening material was slowly oozing onto her hand, as if through a hole.

Choosing a fresh cylinder, Mac grasped the hairs coming from the top and pulled. Sure enough, they came up freely, the glistening interior remaining attached and rising too. What was left behind was a clear tube, with that oily sheen. She found she could pull the food completely from the tube, but it only held its shape for an instant before falling from the hairs.

“When visiting Dhryn, bring bowl and spoon,” Mac told herself for the future. She experimented, finding the tidiest approach was to nibble the food from one side, while attempting not to eat right through the portion held by the hairs. The most effective was to dig in with her finger and lick it clean.

Step four would be the final test, but she’d have to wait a few hours to see how her digestive tract reacted to the alien . . . what should she call it? Mac concentrated on the taste and failed to find any one distinguishing flavor. The overall effect was pleasant, if strange.

A group of Harvs had tinkered with the supper menu at Base a few weeks ago. Mac hadn’t believed it possible to make mashed potatoes one couldn’t identify by taste or appearance, but the students had managed it. “You’re officially ‘spuds,’ ” she told the last three cylinders, using the silliness to control her relief at finding she could safely ingest the Dhryn food.

Despite the moisture in the Dhryn food, water remained the issue, and Mac stuck to her post, back against the door. They’d bring her more spuds eventually. She’d be waiting.

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.”

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.

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?

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.”

“ ‘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.”