27
REUNION AND RENEWAL
THE LAST salmon run was over, the harvesting fleets were docked, the students had gone home. Mac leaned her shoulders against the damp outer wall of Pod Three and took in the unusual neatness of cleared walkways and laundry-free terraces. “Looks like the start of winter,” she told Kammie.
“That it does. Same old thing, every year.”
Mac glanced at the chemist. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?” A look of innocence in the almond-shaped eyes.
“Treat me like I’ll break.”
Kammie tried to look outraged and failed. “That obvious?” she relented, then smiled. “Must be the hair. Not used to it yet.”
“Or this?” Mac held up her left hand and wriggled the fingers. The prosthesis was excellent work. The Ministry looked after its own, Nik had told her. Mind you, she’d upset the warship’s surgeon by insisting on a ceramic finish rather than regrown skin. The resulting pseudo-flesh tone had a faintly blue tint in sunlight.
She could stir acid with the fingers.
“The new hand?” Kammie shook her head. She stared out at the ocean for a long moment, then said softly: “If you must know, it’s your eyes, Mac. Since you got back, you always seem to be looking somewhere else.”
The Ministry had maintained the fiction that she’d been staying at the Interspecies Union Consulate, learning Dhryn, hunting for Emily. The loss of her hand and wrist? A skim accident on the way home, adding to the delay. Mac was reasonably sure Kammie and some of the others—not to mention Charles Mudge III—suspected this wasn’t the whole story. She hoped they’d never need to know it.
She almost wished she didn’t. Almost.
“Elsewhere?” Mac managed to keep it light. “Let’s say I’ve discovered an interest in extraterrestrial biology. I may do a sabbatical offworld, one of these years.”
That earned a laugh from Kammie. “You? This I have to see. Seung—” She faltered, then went on: “He’d have liked to hear you say that.”
Mac nodded. The casualty list had been hard reading. Nik had given it to her while she was receiving her new hand, since everyone at home believed she knew and had grieved. Five dead, including Dr. Seung and the irascible Denise Pillsworthy. Her grieving had only begun. Still, the alarm had saved far more than she’d dared hope, even in Pod Six.
Mac tossed her head. “Let’s go over the reconstruction estimates. I want to be sure you didn’t grow an extra lab while I was gone.”
“Well, I didn’t. But that’s not a bad idea. You do realize this is the optimal time in which to rethink some of the space allocations within the pods . . .”
Mac let Kammie’s peaceful voice wash over her, the way the waves were washing over the bleached logs and stone of the shore. She drew in the rich, moist air and held it inside her lungs, filling her eyes with ocean, forest, cloud, and mountain.
The Dhryn had vanished as effectively as the Ro, their colonies as empty as the rocky remnant of their former home world, a mystery on every level. How had they reached the planets they’d attacked without being seen? Why? The Ministry had Emily’s logs, experts presumably going over every entry. She might have a turn—but only if they ran into messages that could make better sense to a friend. Need-to-know, they’d told her, before sending her home. They did reveal that the IU had sent urgent messages to all its members about the Dhryn “feeder form,” as they now called the pufferfish transformation.
And that the foremost archaeologists from fifty species had been rushed to the Chasm. Brymn would have been pleased, she thought, cautious around what felt like an open wound.
Nik? Mac could close her eyes here and now and see his face. He’d been there, when she’d awakened to find her arm gone; he’d stayed until ordered away. Had looked at her in a way that still warmed her, before going where he had to go.
It might have been respect and sympathy. It might have been something more. She’d have to ask Emily’s advice.
When, not if, she found her again.
“Forgiven,” Mac whispered.
“Pardon? Mac, you haven’t heard a word I said. Are you sure you’re all right?”
Mac focused on Kammie’s concerned face and smiled. “Fine. I’m fine. You go ahead and I’ll meet you in your office.”
“And where will you be?”
Where? Everything and everyone Mackenzie Connor cared about, on Earth and off, was at terrible risk, including the Dhryn. But, abruptly, Mac could let it all go for now, leave the worry to others. For now.
Salt spray kissed her lips. A gull complained overhead, then tipped its wings to slip straight down to the water, snapping level above the waves at the last possible instant with what could only be called a laugh. In the distance, a whale breached, conquering the boundary of ocean and air with a casual toss of its mammoth head.
She was home.
“I think I’ll call my dad.”
