Survival

MAC 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

. . . 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.

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?

“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.

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.”

“Not and survive my line of work,” she said absently, busy looking for the duplicate device. Good, it was out of sight in the luggage—one less thing to explain. Mac wondered when she’d become quite this paranoid.

She also wondered what could have been in that capsule instead of, or with, the Subrecor. Sub-teach might be boring and restrictive; it certainly wasn’t painful. Her head felt swollen as well as sore. With all the flexibility and speed of someone five times her age, Mac rose to her feet, tugging her soaking wet clothes into some order. Her hair, as always, was hopeless. “How long until we reach the transect?”

It was Mac’s turn to blink. “It is?” She repeated the two words without sound, holding her fingers to her lips. Her mouth wasn’t moving as it should be. “I’m speaking another language—I’m speaking Dhryn?” Then, the words “this soon” penetrated and her eyes shot to him. “You knew I would be. How?”

“You were using the subliminal teacher,” he said matter-of-factly. “For what other purpose could it be than to accept Emily Mamani Sarmiento’s gift?”

For a moment, Mac believed she was hallucinating under the drug, that she still lay on the floor, dehydrated and dying, only dreaming Brymn had stormed through the door to her rescue with buckets of odd-tasting water marked . . . she stared at them, reading “sanitation room” with no problem at all.

Brymn waved four of his arms, two more helping him sit and the seventh, as always, tucked away. “Don’t worry. No one will miss it. It is a regular product of our bodies. Most Dhryn don’t care to know how it is removed from the ship.”

“You knew Emily left me a sub-teach of the Dhryn language.” Possibly explaining the headache, Mac told herself, given her brain had been forcibly retooled to think in—whatever this was. She couldn’t tell if she was thinking in English, Instella, or blue marshmallow bits. Her temper started rising. “How did you know?”

“I helped her build it.” Brymn paused. “It’s the oomling tongue, so you do not have to worry about your disability with sound. All who hear you speak will adjust. It will be useful everywhere you find Dhryn. We thought you’d be pleased.” He seemed a trifle offended. There was the hint of a pout to his mouth, which was almost cute in a giant seven-armed alien wearing sequined eyeliner.

“You—” Mac found herself wanting to say “lied,” but failed to find a word to utter that conveyed her meaning. Closest was “delayed information.” She tried another tack. “Emily visited Dhryn colony worlds. Was she visiting you?”

A silence that could only be described as stunned. Mac used her elbows to support herself against the mattresses, feeling a certain sympathy for the big alien. “You didn’t?” Brymn echoed finally.

Mac thought back to their conversations as a three-some. She’d been the one leading the conversations with Brymn; Emily had volunteered very little. Why would Brymn have thought to mention what he supposed she knew? As for any Humanlike show of familiarity, for all Mac knew it wasn’t polite for a Dhryn to rush up and greet an old “friend” in front of others.

“I’ll answer any questions, of course, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor, but if you will excuse a personal comment, you are beginning to sway from side to side in a most alarming manner.”

He had a point. Mac steadied herself with an effort. “Pass me that piece of luggage, please.” When the Dhryn put the larger case on the mattress within her reach, Mac opened it and pulled out the medical kit.

Mac tried to find better language equivalents for illness and injury, but failed. “There are some—chemicals with specific effects on the body. I’m looking for a . . . here it is.” She ran her fingers over what she’d intended to use as a last recourse, then made her decision. Having Brymn here, and cooperative, was not a chance to waste by passing out. “This is what the students call Fastfix: a high concentration of nutrients and electrolytes—whatever’s necessary to bring a depleted Human body chemistry closer to normal—plus a powerful stimulant of some sort. I should feel more energetic.” As opposed to about to fall on her face. She held up the loaded syringe. “The needle is a way to deposit the chemicals under my skin, where they will do their work.”

“Skin—Human skin—closes after the needle is removed.” It was hard enough steeling herself to shove the thing in her arm, without Brymn looming overhead, hands twitching as if he longed to dig into the medical kit for himself. Mac gritted her teeth and pressed the point into herself as hard as she could. The syringe was intended for novices, set to puncture only as deeply as required by the type of medicine loaded in its tube, and sterilizing on insertion and withdrawal, so she could use it again if necessary.

“Ow!” Practice must help, Mac thought ruefully, rubbing her arm. Mandy’s boosters didn’t hurt like this. Of course, the syringe in a field kit need not be as patient-friendly as those in a clinic. “See? Easy as can be.” She put the syringe away, counting the number she had left. Two.

Everyone knew Fastfix was addictive with repeated use, the body adjusting its base level requirements upward and upward until a user became essentially nonfunctional without a fresh dose. Mac assumed the kit contained a safe number, then wondered why she’d believe that.

As she waited for the drug to work its magic, she noticed Brymn’s nostrils had constricted to slits while he continued to examine the medical kit. Well, Mac thought, she was soaked in Dhryn urine, or its equivalent. “Why don’t you take that in the other room while I change out of these clothes?” she offered.

He picked up the kit as tenderly as if lifting an infant—assuming the Dhryn had that type of parent/offspring interaction, Mac reminded herself. “Are you sure you will not require my assistance?” he asked, looking torn between his fascination and a desire to help.

With Brymn safely preoccupied, Mac worked as quickly as she could. Although warm, the air in the Pasunah was so dry the dampness of her clothes evaporated rapidly, chilling her skin. She stripped, keeping only the waist pouch into which she put her imp, Kammie’s note, and the Ministry envelope. She felt warmer immediately, though she couldn’t be sure how much of that was an effect of the ’fix.

Mac tried not to think of the chemicals circulating in her blood. There was nothing she could do but hope she’d done the right thing. Abused by the spuds, dehydration, and Subrecor, her body systems were doubtless plotting their revenge. The ’fix was only postponing the inevitable crash.

First. Despite its origin, and now perceptibly musty smell, Mac went to the bucket of mostly water and, cupping her hands, made herself drink slowly. She’d had worse from a stream, she judged, although part of her mind was already busy thinking of how best to distill any future contributions. As a precaution, she filled her water bottles and put them aside. Finally, she soaked her shirt and used it to scrub herself clean as best she could.

Better than the ’fix, Mac decided, feeling herself becoming more alert by the moment. She didn’t bother trying to bring order to her hair, beyond wringing out the braid and tying it up again as tightly as she could. Dressing was quick, the luggage again providing a yellow shirt and pants. Mac began to wonder if the color had significance to the Dhryn.

“Yes. I’m almost finished.” Fearing the Dhryn’s active curiosity, Mac grabbed the other imp from the small case and crouched on the far side of the mattress stack from the now permanently open door.

Just as she was about to record what had happened, Mac closed her mouth and stared at the ’screen. She presumed she was thinking in English, because she could conceptualize terms for which there were no Dhryn equivalents. But, unlike her experience in switching from English to Instella, for all she knew, she was speaking English as well. Only the novel movements of her lips and tongue proved Dhryn, not English, was coming from her mouth.

How didn’t matter—though the question was fascinating—what mattered was the consequence. What would Nik—or any Human—think of her voice suddenly switching to fluent Dhryn? Mac swallowed, feeling her pulse race. Could they even understand her? She had to believe so. The Dhryn had been members of the Interspecies Union long enough for actual translators to exist, although given how it had rewired her language center, Mac didn’t recommend Dhryn for sub-teaching.

Brymn had told her they’d enter the Naralax Transect tomorrow. Mac checked the chronometer. Ship’s night was only two hours away. Was tomorrow at midnight? How long did she have?

“This is Mackenzie Connor. I’ve been taught—” how was that for skirting the issue? “—to speak Dhryn, specifically what I’m told is the ‘oomling’ language. I—can’t speak anything else at the moment.

“In case I am unable to add to this recording before it is sent,” she went on, keeping her voice calm and even, “please tell my father I’m all right. Please tell Nik, if he—” lives stuck in Mac’s throat, “—if he is available, that he was right. It wasn’t just one.” She hoped he’d understand she meant lies. And Emily.

Voices, low and angry, erupted from the other room. Mac ended the recording and secured the imp in her waist pouch under her clothes, on the principle that while the aliens would be unlikely to note a new lump around her middle, they could very well separate her from her luggage, or confiscate it altogether. She glanced longingly at the handle with the beacon, but had no way to remove it.

Mac walked into a dispute. “What’s going on?” she asked, eyeing three new Dhryn, dressed in the woven blue she’d come to associate with crew of the Pasunah, and Brymn, resplendent in his red and gold silks. They were gathered around the table, on which Brymn had placed her medical kit. Two of Brymn’s right arms were protectively covering the flat box, his left set gesticulating wildly.

“There you are, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor,” her ally/lamisah exclaimed. “Tell these Ones of No Useful Function they have no right to search your quarters!”

The “Ones of No Useful Function” didn’t look at all pleased by this announcement. They were armed, as the Dhryn on the way station had been. One was missing a lower hand and he—she really did need to check on the appropriate pronoun—was the one who spoke. “Our apologies, Esteemed Passenger, but Dyn Rymn Nasai Ne has ordered that we confirm before transect to Dhryn space that you have brought nothing forbidden on board.”

He looked pointedly at her medical kit. Before Mac could even form a protest, Brymn hooted loudly and said: “Have you no education? These are Human cosmetics.”

Cosmetics? Mac tried to keep a straight face. True, all the Dhryn were wearing some sort of artificial coloring on their faces, although compared to Brymn’s bold use of adhesive sequins and chartreuse to outline his ridges, the crew’s subtle mauves were next to invisible. Mac, on the other hand, was wearing healing scratches, a bruise or two, and that lovely pink of healing skin.

Still, this was the group who hadn’t grasped that another species might have differing dietary requirements. “Don’t all civilized beings take care of their appearance?” Mac demanded, swooping up the kit and closing the lid. She tucked it under one arm, gearing herself to defend it.

Something in Brymn’s posture suggested the other was somehow insulting her. By not using her name? “What is your name?” Mac asked, making her voice as low and stern as she could.

“Adequate,” she sniffed. “I take the name Tisle Ne into my keeping. You have, I believe, mine? Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor is all my name.” Mac couldn’t help emphasizing the all.

A rising bow, tall and seemingly sincere, from all three. “A prodigious name. I am most honored,” said Tisle Ne. “I take the name Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor into my keeping.”

Their noses constricted and the other two crew Dhryn wrapped their arms around their torsos. A better-than-Human olfactory sense, Mac decided, grinning inwardly. The mattress on the bedroom floor had soaked up most of the first bucket.

“If you would vouch that there is no forbidden technology in your luggage, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor, these Ones of No Useful Function can trouble someone else.”

Mac had a feeling Brymn was pushing his luck with Tisle Ne, and hoped “her” Dhryn knew what he was doing. It seemed he did. “That would suffice,” Tisle Ne said, his tiny lips pressed together after the words.

“You are most kind,” Mac told him, doing her best to imitate their bow without tipping over backward. Then she considered the possibility of months with these beings and took what seemed the safest possible course. “Remind me what is forbidden, please. Then I can truthfully vouch I don’t have such things.”

Brymn bristled, arms rising and hands opening and closing. He put himself slightly in front of Mac, torso lowered so she could see right over his head. Physical threat, she judged it, clear and simple. An unlikely knight. “Then there can be nothing forbidden here,” Brymn rumbled, “for the Progenitors have declared Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor welcome.”

The crystals of a lamp tinkled. Infrasound, Mac realized, feeling the rumble through the floor as well. Presumably they were growling at each other. It seemed she was to be inflicted with territorial posturing even here.

The Dhryn knew. Tisle Ne straightened. “It is too late for arguments now, Academic. We are home.” With that, he turned and left the room, the other two Dhryn following behind.

“You can get used to anything.” He didn’t need to know it was her first time. Mac headed for the viewport. “Which Dhryn space is this?” she threw over her shoulder. Nik had implied she was being taken to a world of only Dhryn. Her guidebook to the Naralax Transect had listed the Dhryn as having one home system, unnamed and closed to aliens. That might be it. But there was also a relatively modest colonization of forty-eight others whose exits were open to traffic from members of the Union. Some of those might also be only Dhryn. None had been identified in the guide as the Dhryn birth-place; Seung’s text had emphasized that not every species shared such information willingly.

She couldn’t tell from here. The view was disappointing. If Mac hadn’t experienced that odd déjà vu, she would have assumed that fingernail-sized spot of yellow was the sun she’d always known.

Just as well. A different view might have taken what her mind knew and transferred it to a gut certainty. Light from that sun wouldn’t reach Earth for millions of years—an impossible, unfathomable distance. There was only one way home—the Naralax Transect.

Of course, if the transects ever failed, her problem would be trivial on the grand scale. That failure would end the Interspecies Union. Every species would be separated by an impassable gulf; each isolated and alone, as they’d been before the Sinzi had made their discovery and shared it.

Mac had no doubt Earth would continue, as it had before the transects. She was equally sure every species would work to rebuild the system and eventually succeed—but would reach out to their own lost colonies first.

So, if the transects failed, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor would be trapped on the wrong side of this one until the end of her days, an alien curiosity for the Dhryn. Their token Human.

Haven? Mac shifted the medical kit from under her arm to in front of her chest and wrapped both arms around it. When she noticed, she shook her head at her own defensive reaction. It was only a name, like “Earth.”

She might not find her way around a star chart the way she could a salmon scale, but Mac knew enough to feel a shiver. “No other planets? Asteroids? Moons?”

“There were, but they were unsuitable for Dhryn,” Brymn told her, his tone implying surprise at her question. “Such are hiding places for the Ro. The Progenitors do not tolerate them in our home system. We must protect our oomlings.”

The home system. Well, now she knew where she was, Mac told herself. Not in the guidebook. But . . . one sun, one world. Feeling somewhat faint, a not surprising reaction to technology capable of sweeping an entire system clear of unwanted rock—and a species that would use it—Mac put the kit on the table and sank into a chair. “The Progenitors. Tell me about them.”

Cryptic. Or was it? How much of what the Dhryn said should she take literally? “The Progenitors produce new generations of Dhryn?” Mac hazarded, too curious to worry about offense. “Oomlings?”

Brymn clapped his hands and smiled at her. “You see, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor? This is why I value your insights into living things. You understand us already.”

There had been an entire unit on alien reproduction in the xeno text, sure to titillate the most jaded students. All Mac recalled was having the familiar reaction that nature found the most ridiculous ways to propagate. Adding intelligence and culture to biology seemed only to compound the issue, not simplify it. “I don’t know anything about Dhryn biology,” Mac reminded him. Before he could be too helpful, she continued: “And now isn’t the time, Brymn. It’s Human biology—mine—that concerns me at this moment. I need a constant supply of water. Here, on the Pasunah, and on . . . Haven. Can you provide it?”

“Wonderful. How about distillation equipment?” At his puzzled frown, Mac shrugged. Archaeologists. “I’ll manage that myself. Let me talk to a chemist. But food’s another matter.” She went to the table and picked up one of the remaining spuds. “Is this all you have available?”

Brymn took it from her. Bringing the cylinder almost to his lips, he deftly plucked the contents from the cylinder by the hairs, then sucked them into his mouth before they could ooze free with a slurp that could only be described as gleeful. “Ah. They listened to me about this one thing. I remembered your delight in the soufflé and thought you’d enjoy another sweet.”

Dessert? Mac didn’t know whether to laugh or pull her hair. “So there are other types of—wait.” That damned soufflé. She had to know. “Did you put a message—anything—in the bag with the soufflé? Something for me?” Mac hesitated, then went on: “Or for Emily?”

Brymn startled her by tilting his head on its side; combined with his golden eyes, it gave him a striking resemblance to a perplexed owl, albeit a giant blue one. She had no idea that thick neck was so flexible. “Was I supposed to?” he asked.

“No. No, you weren’t.” She couldn’t help a sigh of relief. So much for Nik’s suspicion. Mac wasn’t sure how real investigators went about their business, but her own research typically involved eliminating the obvious before the truth began to appear. As now.

More and more, she was coming to believe the truth was that Brymn had been used, by the Ministry, by Nik, and by Emily. He’d traveled far from his kind, alone, in search of answers—and been betrayed by those who were supposed to help him.

“Forget the soufflé. It isn’t important. Brymn,” she said, choosing her words with care, despite an urgency to know that had her hands clenched into fists. “What were you told happened on the way station?”

“Only that you were found without difficulty and brought to the Pasunah ahead of schedule.” He pursed his lips and looked troubled. “Was there a problem? I admit to having felt some concern. There was unusual urgency about our departure and I wasn’t to visit you until permission came from the Progenitors.”

“Before I could leave with your people, the Ro found me,” Mac told him. “I—” She stopped to let the big alien compose himself. The word “Ro” had started his limbs shaking.

“I—I—” Mucus trembled at the corners of Brymn’s nostrils. “We wanted to keep you safe from them, Mac, as we would our oomlings. Were you—damaged?”

“No,” Mac assured him. “I ran. Your people found me and brought me to safety. But . . .” She hesitated a heartbeat, unable to control her own trembling. Great pair of brave adventurers they were. Mac struggled to remain calm and detached. “Emily was there, Brymn.”

“Em didn’t need saving. She wasn’t a captive. On the way station, the Ro chased me to her. She asked me to come with her, with them. Nik—Nikolai Trojanowski, he was there. He tried to stop me. Then she—then Emily—shot him.”

Then she was almost smothered in a six-armed hug. His uppermost shoulder was almost nonexistent, his skin was the wrong temperature and felt like rubber, and his ear ridge dug painfully into her head. None of this mattered.