Survival

Mac, busy trying to maintain some dignity while walking quickly enough to keep her heels from being trampled by their escort, rolled her eyes at Brymn. He was beaming, insofar as his small mouth allowed. Those hands nearest her—the Dhryn was on her left—kept patting her shoulder or arm at random intervals. It was as if he had to reassure himself she was with him, a friend to witness this “so exciting” moment.

They weren’t being arrested, or the Dhryn equivalent. Mac had figured that much out when none of the twenty-two Dhryn waiting in the wide corridor had bothered entering the Textile Archives nor waited to close the door. Instead, she and Brymn had been informed they were late.

Their escort had ended further conversation by raising their weapons again. It hadn’t quelled Brymn, who’d almost danced beside her. She’d only hoped the big alien didn’t burst into ecstatic song and land them both in deeper trouble.

“Below” was accurate enough. Within their cluster of armed Dhryn, each wearing individual colors but similar in that all had lost one or more limbs and so were of higher accomplishment than Brymn, they’d been taken into the heart of Haven. First had been a series of sloping ramps, each barred by a massive door better suited to being an air lock under the ocean in Mac’s estimation. Following the ramps had been a lift, which had carried all of them, in very tight proximity, down for a remarkably long time. Mac had leaned on Brymn after a while, grateful she’d never suffered from claustrophobia.

Now they walked very quickly down another, much wider ramp. The soft-soled Dhryn feet were almost silent on any surface, but here lush carpeting underfoot muffled Mac’s boots as well. Without voices, they walked to their breathing alone, Brymn’s the loudest and most rapid.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

As if following Mac’s line of thought, the Progenitor continued: “As you can see, I have gained far more than I left, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

“How long does it take to grow this big?” Mac asked, leaning her head back as she estimated the bulk of shoulders and what had been head looming over them. Brymn made a strangled noise; Mac ignored him.

“Five hundred or so of your years,” the Progenitor answered. “I am the most recent to begin producing oomlings. My name—no longer matters. Few endure the change; fewer still the growth.” A tinge of pride. “Those who do, are the Dhryn. What else would you like to know?”

Mac had no idea what grathnu involved, but she was sure she wanted it to happen to someone else no matter how curious she was about the Dhryn. But as Mac opened her mouth, the Progenitor smiled. “Yes, Brymn may serve first.”

Brymn stammered his thanks until the Progenitor frowned slightly. Then he gave a bow so deep he almost tipped over backward, which would have sent him over the palm and tumbling onto the torso far below. Mac breathed a sigh of relief when he straightened again. “My life’s work has been for the Dhryn,” he announced, coming to stand before the face. “I am Dhryn.” He spread his six arms outward, fingers outstretched.

The seventh arm burst into the open, its edged fingers stretched as well. As if it had eyes, it swayed and turned, boneless as the hanging arms of the pufferfish Dhryn. Mac took a step closer, fascinated. The fingers stopped and oriented toward her.

“I return to my Progenitor that which I am.” He brought his lower left arm to his chest. Like a striking snake, the fingers of the seventh lunged forward to seize the limb at the wrist. Before Mac’s horrified eyes, the sharp fingers sliced through the arm.

Brymn’s left lowermost hand dropped to the palm of the Progenitor, followed by a few splashes of blue-black. The wound must be self-sealing, Mac realized numbly. The Dhryn’s face bore an expression of rapture and his seventh arm, task complete, hung limp down his chest.

“I take the name Brymn Las into my keeping,” the Progenitor acknowledged. “And his gift of self, which shall enrich that which is Dhryn through my flesh.”

Mac flinched to one side as a pufferfish Dhryn swooped down, battling its way through the streams of air leaving the gigantic nostrils above to hover beside her. This close, it looked even less like a Dhryn. Instead of thick blue skin, it appeared made of membrane and air, its organs tantalizingly visible. Before she could study it further, the pufferfish Dhryn collected Brymn’s hand in its tentacles and lifted away again.

Brymn was looking at her expectantly. How could he be thrilled to have been maimed? Mac, feeling more Human than she had for days, licked her lips and said, “I take the name Brymn Las into my keeping. A fine name.”

Mac’s pants had pockets. She rammed both hands into their protection, as if that could possibly help. “I’m not worthy,” she said weakly.

“You saved Brymn Las, you forced our ancestral enemy into flight, you left your home and risked yourself in order to protect what is Dhryn. You are Dhryn. You are more than worthy. Come,” the Progenitor insisted gently. “Serve.”

Of the predicaments Mac had ever imagined for herself, or dreamed in her worst nightmares, being trapped on the hand of a giant alien who expected her to cut off her own hand wasn’t remotely one of them. It likely would be from now on.

Mac stiffened her shoulders and tried to remember Brymn’s phrasing. Ah, yes. “My work has been for the Dhryn.” She tugged her braid from the back of her shirt, letting it fall down her chest. “I am Dhryn.” She stretched out her arms, then brought both to her chest. “I give to the Progenitor that which I am.” She’d palmed the small knife from her pocket in her right hand. Now, she grasped the braid in her left hand and sliced it off with her right.

The hair twisted as it fell to the palm of the Progenitor. What remained on Mac’s head tumbled asymmetrically over her cheeks and down her neck, a lock dropping into her eyes. Without brushing it aside, Mac said firmly: “I am Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.” It hadn’t been as hard as she’d feared to find one syllable to add to her name, something she could stand to hear repeated every time a Dhryn spoke to her. The name of Earth’s Sun would be a promise to herself.

“I take the name Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol into my keeping,” the Progenitor said gravely, “and her gift of self, which shall enrich that which is Dhryn through my flesh.”

The pufferfish Dhryn who arrived to pick up Mac’s braid appeared slightly confused, dipping up and down several times before finally grasping its find and heading away with it.

Brymn wasn’t the least confused. He swept Mac into a hug, thoughtfully not using the arm still dripping fluid. “I knew you would serve grathnu with us as well as your own Progenitors, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol!”

Mac’s hand strayed to the jagged remains of her hair, a fair amount just past shoulder length and nodded, unable to smile. She’d broken her promise to Sam. He wasn’t coming back.

The Progenitor was as good as her word, willingly answering Mac’s questions. Unfortunately, despite Mac’s care to avoid forbidden topics such as biology, every one of those answers was the standard Dhryn “we do not think of it,” complete with a warm smile. After a dozen such responses, having learned nothing useful about the Ro or the Dhryn, Mac decided she’d tire before the Progenitor.

Now, she sat cross-legged beside Brymn on the palm of a giant. Amazing how easily the mind could put aside considerations like incredible size and inconceivable power when it came to a war of wills. Mac eyed the face on the blue wall of flesh and knew there were real answers behind it. Good thing, she told herself, she herself was stubborn to a fault.

Mac took advantage of the Progenitor’s slight hesitation. “You must have expected me to ask you something in particular, or you wouldn’t have invited my questions.” She kept her voice set to sweetly courteous when it tried to slip into sarcasm. “I’d hate to disappoint you.”

Brymn gave her a look that, from a Human companion, would have been asking, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mac ignored it, on the basis that from a Dhryn, for all she knew, it meant approval.

“I admit, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol, that I have waited for you to ask why the Progenitors who preceded me chose to destroy our past, why we allow our system to remain at risk through the transects, and why I permitted you to be the first alien to meet a Dhryn Progenitor face-to-face.”

They stared at one another, Brymn shifting unhappily as if he wished to say something but didn’t dare. In this instance, Mac realized, she had an advantage over her friend. He was too used to revering the Progenitors, handicapping his ability to challenge different viewpoints.

Mac, on the other hand, was well past caring about protocol, and her only feeling about the Progenitor was a familiar awe for the way biology managed to work around civilization.

“Very well.” The Progenitor pursed her small lips. “Our past has not been destroyed, although it has been made inaccessible to most Dhryn, including curious academics such as Brymn Las. Progenitors live a very long time. The three who survived the attacks of the Ro to settle this world lived long enough to share their knowledge with the next generation of successful Progenitors. That knowledge has been passed to those of my generation. Thus, we know what has been, what is, and what may be the consequence. Other Dhryn do not need to think of it.”

“We barely escaped them,” the Progenitor acknowledged, her eyes closing. “Had we not discovered technology to defend against theirs, we would have been destroyed again.”

Her eyes opened in a flash of yellow-gold. “Before the Ro found us again, we had reached a point at which our oomlings must have new homes or suffer the consequences of overcrowding this one. We cannot change what it is to be Dhryn, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. Our colonies are essential to our survival.”

Population pressure. Mac had to give the Dhryn credit—from what she’d seen, they’d made thorough use of this planet before venturing outward to others. If the Progenitors were physically incapable of slowing the birth rate—and culturally unwilling to find a biological way out—new worlds were the only answer.

The Progenitor’s eyes, though embedded forever in this mountain of flesh, could still sparkle. “Young Brymn Las is not the only curious Dhryn, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. I wished to see an alien with my own eyes, not through sensors and vids. At the same time, only one who is deemed Dhryn may be allowed in this chamber. You are both.”

Mac pressed her hand against the palm supporting them. She doubted its thickened surface could feel something so small, but the Progenitor could see and hopefully understand the gesture. “I hope I haven’t been a disappointment, Progenitor.”

“In no sense, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol, though I fear I must now disappoint you. One final question, if you please. I tire easily.”

One? Mac almost panicked. What if she asked a question that received only the stock answer? What if she missed the most important one?

For no reason, Mac thought of the envelope in the pouch around her waist. She settled herself, abruptly sure what Nik would want her to ask. “If the Ro are beginning to attack other species as they did yours in the Chasm, what can we do to protect ourselves? Will the Dhryn share their effective defense?”

Two questions, but they would be one if the only answer was the Dhryn technology. Mac chewed her lower lip as the Progenitor deliberated. At least, Mac thought, the delay meant it wasn’t going to be another “we don’t think of it.”

It wasn’t. The palm shifted beneath them, sending both Mac and Brymn to their feet, staggering to keep their balance. “We remember!” the Progenitor cried out in a pain-filled voice, eyes wild. Mac heard cries from below as the torso landscape shook with emotion, churning the pools, spilling oomlings. “There is no protection! No safety! There is only emptiness and regret!” The wall in front of them became stained with yellow as mucus boiled from the huge nostrils above. Quieter, but no less intense: “The gates between worlds will close again and the only hope is to run before they do. Tell your species to run, Human! Run while you still can!”

Mac had worried the distraught Progenitor would mean equally upset guards. But the Dhryn escort waiting at the doorway might not have noticed, Parymn nodding a greeting and beckoning them forward. Perhaps, Mac thought, eyeing their impassive faces, the emotional turmoil of a buried Progenitor was another aspect of Dhryn life they chose not to think about.

She could think of little else, silent and self-contained throughout their journey back to the tube trains, offering no more than a nod of farewell to Parymn and his guards at the station, curling up in a luggage rack without a word to Brymn.

The Progenitor knew what life had been like for the first of her kind on this world. The three survivors must have arrived on ships, but then? Mac tried to imagine such huge, fragile creatures lying out in the open, desperate to repopulate their species, utterly vulnerable until they had established themselves. The fear of the Ro following and finding them, despite the closed transect, must have been horrific.

No wonder they had spared their children that nightmare. No wonder, Mac thought as they passed from the area protected by shroud and rock, they had reacted as they had to the Ro’s return. Hiding here, sending only the newly adult outside the system. The Progenitors must have been nearly hysterical at the news that the Ro had begun attacking other species again—that the nightmare from their past was coming to life, exactly as they’d been told.

“Mac. Are you in pain? Should we hurry? Do you need your case of special supplies?” The concerned whisper from a being cradling a mutilated arm shook Mac from her preoccupation.

“I’m fine, Brymn. How about you?” The wound itself was covered in a pale blue membrane, but Mac couldn’t imagine the underlying damage had already healed.

Brymn looked tired but found a smile. “A Dhryn is robust or a Dhryn is not. I have been honored beyond my dreams, Mac. What we gave the Progenitor will inspire the coming generation of oomlings.” At her puzzled look, he explained. “Grathnu is required for a Progenitor to perform her function. Only adult Dhryn such as ourselves can provide what is needed.”

Mac studied Brymn’s chubby three-fingered hands with new interest. Sexual reproduction in many Earth species involved the female receiving a packet of sperm contained in a male body part. It offered the convenience of allowing the sperm to be stored for later use, not to mention dispensed with several potentially unsuccessful methods of exchange. “Will it grow back? Your hand, I mean.”

“Sorry. Just curious.” Mac combed her fingers through the remains of her hair and hoped the pufferfish Dhryn could detect that her gift didn’t have quite the same potential. “Was that your Progenitor?”

She’d definitely disturb him if she pursued this, Mac realized, longing for a good DNA scanner. She changed the subject. “We need to take another look at all the reports, Lamisah, now that we’ve confirmed your theory about the Chasm and the survival of the Dhryn. I don’t understand why the Ro have suddenly stepped up their attacks—against others as well as your people. Perhaps there’s a clue we’ve missed.”

“We shouldn’t talk of private matters here, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.” Brymn freed one of his hands to wave at the lone ’bot still hovering at the other end of the train car. “This one has come with us from the Chamber. It could have more capabilities than the others.”

Startled, Mac stared up at the thing. It looked like all the rest, a featureless globe, but then again, she’d stopped noticing them. Parymn probably set it to follow them after he and his guards put them on this car. She restrained the impulse to stick out her tongue.

“When we get home, I’m going to trim this,” Mac said instead, flipping back the hair that seemed intent on falling into her left eye.

She was as good as her word. A pair of Dhryn scissors—which took two hands to use—and an underlying anger at a universe out of control had proved a potent combination. Mac dug her fingers into her scalp and ruffled its minimal covering, unexpectedly pleased. Who knew there was still curl? The stuff was out of control, of course, twisting in any direction it chose, but it couldn’t get into her eyes now. She pulled a few pieces down over her forehead, unsurprised to find some were gray.

Mac studied her reflection, comforted by a stronger resemblance to her Mom than ever. There had been a lady who could cope with the strange and alien.

She sighed. Coping. That was a word to live by. Mac pulled out Nik’s imp and entered as complete a description of the past few hours as she could. She had to believe such things mattered, that what she was learning would make its way to others.

Done, she headed for the “place of refreshment.” Mac tossed the last of her shorn locks into the biological accommodation and watched them flash into nothing, thinking of Emily’s story about the Sythian living with Humans, who’d cremated her mandible trimmings every night. Sitting in a tent on her own world, Mac had judged the behavior amusing and more than a little pathetic. Now the shoe was firmly on the other foot. Mac didn’t want any Dhryn to find samples of what she’d given in grathnu. Although she hadn’t really served, as Brymn, she appreciated the significance of the Progenitor’s request. It seemed—impolite—to leave extras lying around.

Mac discovered Brymn had been busy while she’d tamed her hair. Having learned which foods suited her, he’d prepared a meal for them both. As usual, however, while waiting, he’d nibbled his way through most of his portion. Mac imagined the stress he’d endured was taking some toll, even if he’d never admit it.

The hair? “Of a sort,” Mac answered, her stomach growling. Her head felt strangely light, something she chose to attribute more to hunger than haircut. “Let’s get started.”

Shoving a piece of what she’d come to call “bread” into her mouth, Mac made room on the table—Human and thus not slanted—for an assortment of items. Prime among them was the shimmering envelope that had drawn her into all of this. Brymn added the tablet of news reports. “I don’t hold much hope for more information from these sources, Mac,” he rumbled. “We’ve gone over them all.”

Mac chewed and swallowed, managing not to make a face at the bitter aftertaste. “Interpretation is affected by other knowledge,” she reminded him. “I analyzed these without knowing the connection between the Chasm, the Ro, and the Dhryn—or the time frame involved. Information about your biology might also influence what we find in here.”

She gulped something yellow and lunged for water, having forgotten the heat the innocent jellylike substance contained. Eyes watering, Mac gasped: “If I knew how, I wouldn’t need to look through this again.”

Mac shook her head, then tried to explain the driving anxiety she’d felt since leaving the Progenitor. Had it been the utter vulnerability of the creature and her offspring? “We can’t assume we have time to spare. We don’t know for sure what’s happening outside this system. I—” She stopped, staring at the water in her glass.

“I’m not sure.” He headed for the door to her terrace. Mac started to follow, then, muttering a curse at her own paranoia, changed her mind. She grabbed what she’d brought to the table, returning the imp and envelope to the waist pouch, tucking Brymn’s tablet into her shirt. She even took a bottle of water with her, feeling like a fool.

Mac caught up to Brymn at the door. It was raining outside, of course, and he hesitated to step out in it. She patted his shoulder as she went by, starting to offer: “I’ll take a look—” Suddenly, the vibration intensified, shaking loose objects inside the apartment, making Mac clutch at the doorframe for safety.

A fireball had plunged into the midst of the Dhryn city, sending gouts of flame and debris—whole buildings—into the air. No—not a fireball—the tip of an unseen torch that continued to burn its way down, down, as if seeking the core of the world.

Not the core of the world. Mac knew the area under assault. They’d come out of the tube tunnel right there. The core of the Dhryn!

“The Progenitors!” Mac gasped. “The Ro are attacking the Chamber.” She found herself at the railing of the terrace, staring out at a violence all the more terrifying because she knew its target.

It was as if horror had heightened Mac’s senses. She spotted the gleam from the shadow of the leaning wall. “Brymn. Brymn!” He answered to her tug on his arm, followed her pointing finger to the vidbot hovering harmlessly above.

“Not that one! We have to get it,” Mac said desperately. She threw her water bottle at the thing, but it only dipped aside. “Brymn!”

Whether the Dhryn’s outrage at the attack helped or if he was always this accurate, Mac couldn’t guess, but he spat at the ’bot, striking it dead center. Metal hissing to vapor, the device plummeted from the air, landed on the terrace, and rolled to Mac’s feet.

Wincing at the sounds of destruction from behind her, guided by a red, glowing light that wasn’t from the sun, Mac bent to study the half-melted device and saw what she’d feared. She tried to speak, to tell Brymn, but her voice trapped itself in a sob. She tried again.

“I led them!” She had to scream to be heard over the rain of bricks and girders, tile and rock. The words tore from her throat like vomit, scalding as they came. “It’s one of Emily’s Tracers! She used it to track me into the Chamber. I led them there, Brymn!”

Emily and the Ro had wanted Mac on the Dhryn home world for only one reason. To get them past the Dhryn shrouds and protections. To guide them to their helpless quarry.

Still crouched, Mac blinked through the ash now filling the air. The torch tip had sunk below the surface now, the sky darkening. The world hissed in pain as the true rain fought the fires clawing toward them. “Below?” she echoed. “What can we do? We can’t fight—that—” a wave at the crater growing before their eyes.

It meant they were already too late. Mac knew by the way Brymn’s movements abruptly stopped. He put her down again, steadying her with his hands. “I am sorry, Lamisah.”