“We can’t understand it,” she whispered, doubting he’d take the hint. “Kay said you were good with numbers. Maybe it will make sense to—” Before the words left her mouth, Fourteen snatched up the mem-sheet and ran into the cabin. “—you,” Mac finished.
Kay gave her shoulder a quick pat. “He may be annoying, but he isn’t just good with numbers. He’s one of the best cryptologists of any species. If anyone can make some sense of it, Fourteen can. If he can’t, then someone at the Gathering surely will. Thank you, Mac. Thank you.”
“Ah, Mac?” The air might be stifling warm, but that voice through the porch screen was only a fraction above absolute zero. “May I have a word with you, please? Now.”
She closed her eyes for a second, then somehow smiled at Kay. “Why don’t you grab us some beers, Kay, and make sure Fourteen has what he needs? I’ll just go—”
see how angry Nik is,
“—see what Sam needs.”
Feet crunching through gravel, then scuffing pine needles, Nik marched around the cabin to the outhouse. He opened the door and walked inside, leaving her to follow.
That angry,
Mac told herself, and squared her shoulders.
Fine
. She was a member of the IU, now. Not that it seemed likely to help at this instant.
The outhouse, despite its name and practical function in wintertime, was primarily a workshop and storeroom. Stuffed owls stared down from their shelves, surveying the irregular stone floor crowded with barrels and boxes. One wall held a rack of tools, most older than Mac. The back wall had the door to the privy, within a forest of skis, poles, ice drills, hockey sticks, and snow shovels, while the remaining wall was taken up by the requisite wood stove. The only light, at the moment, came through the skylight Mac hadn’t bothered to clean of pine needles and cobwebs. Its beams sloped down in a cascade of pale yellow dust, to cast four bright squares on the floor.
Nik stationed himself beside the stove, stiff and straight, eyes hooded in the relative gloom. His arms were folded across his chest, like armor.
“Before you spout ‘threat to the species’ at me, Mr. Trojanowski,” Mac told him, standing straight herself, “consider who was given that message in the first place. Me. I’m the one Emily expects to figure it out—not you, not ’Sephe, not your experts. Me. And this is how I’m going to try. With Fourteen’s help. With Kay’s help. I’m a member of the IU now.”
He gave a curt nod. “Getting Fourteen on it was brilliant, Mac. Couldn’t have done better myself.”
Brilliant?
Mac, all set to defend her decision, with colorful language and a brandished hockey stick if necessary, was thrown off-balance. “Why drag me out here then?”
“I’m leaving. Now.” Flat, neutral. “I won’t be coming back.”
It was like that first moment of her swim, skin hitting ice cold water, the shock driving the breath from her body. Mac fought to see anything of Nik’s expression in the shadows; she couldn’t.
Hiding, Mr. Spy?
That, more than anything, convinced her.
Her heart started hammering. “You haven’t finished the path.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to say. Should say. Couldn’t.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Did he mean he knew what she
hadn’t
said, Em?
Mac refused to follow that path into complete incoherence.
“Mac, I don’t have much time.” She thought she heard a hint of regret.
Or imagined it.
“We have to talk before I go.”
Go where? Why?
Mac longed to demand answers, to protest . . .
And how,
she asked herself
, could that be fair to either of them?
“I’m listening,” she said quietly, surrounded by memories and dust.
The words came out staccato sharp, like some battlefield briefing.
There really wasn’t time,
she thought, beginning to worry why. “A name you need to know. Bernd Hollans. Career Ministry. Spent the last two years seconded to Earthgov as adviser on Human-IU trade. He’s the one who persuaded the Secretary General to take the investigation into the disappearances, the Chasm, seriously. Just been appointed our voice in IU policy regarding the Dhryn and the Ro.”
“Making him your new boss?” she guessed.
Was Nik’s sudden departure this Hollans’ doing?
Better that, than any of the other options she’d imagined.
Nik took a step forward; a beam of light struck his leg. The contrast turned the rest of him darker, deepened shadows. “He knows my value,” he said just as obscurely. “I know his. He’ll make the tough decisions. You won’t like him, Mac, but don’t let that fool you. Hollans—he can be trusted.”
Politicians.
Something she usually avoided.
As for trust?
Mac wrapped her arms around her middle. “What else?”
“The Trisulian rescue mission to Ascendis turned out to be something else.”
“What?” Mac frowned. “Kay told me they’d sent more ships to retrieve Eeling refugees than any other species.”
“Oh, they sent more ships, all right.” Sharp and edged. “Settler convoys. Ascendis may be ruined for the foreseeable future, but her moons and their very lucrative refitting stations remain intact. As do her transect connections. The Trisulian Ruling Council has petitioned for official recognition of the system as part of their holdings and it’s unlikely any will argue. Certainly not the few Eelings left alive.”
Mac’s eyes widened with understanding. “Ravens.”
“I don’t see what—”
“Ravens survive winter by scavenging deer and elk carcasses, Nik. They follow predators in order to find their kills.”
“The Trisulians as ravens to the Dhryn?” Nik was silent for an instant, then said slowly, as if thinking out loud: “I want to say it’s unlikely, but they’ve a history of snatching new territory by force. It almost cost them their transects. With the prospect of conveniently uninhabited worlds, complete with atmosphere, water, even most buildings and roads intact? All they’d need are some climate regulators to keep the first miners happy, long-term reclamation projects for agriculture. It would be tempting.”
“If,” Mac emphasized, “they learn to predict Dhryn movements. They’d have to know, in order to arrive in time to feed on the corpse first.”
“Remind me not to use your phrasing in the discussions of the issue.”
She didn’t quite smile. “Is Kay involved in this? Is that why he’s here?”
Really tired of betrayal, Em.
“No reason to think so.” Nik’s voice lost some of its edge. “He’s a minor official, good record if undistinguished, presently serving his species’ contingent at the Gathering. Handles catering, runs errands, that sort of thing. I can’t see an underling being privy to the Ruling Council’s actions. He volunteered to approach you for the IU and was someone who could be spared, that’s all.”
She could feel his doubt. “That’s not all, is it? You suspect Kay of something.”
He hesitated, then shrugged, a shadow shifting its shape. She still couldn’t see his face clearly. “It’s my nature. Trisulians are fond of secrets. They like collecting information; knowing things—even trivia—before everyone else. Didn’t surprise me to find Kay had offered to meet you. For someone like him, chances to learn or do something first must be rare. But I was puzzled why he’d invite Fourteen. They barely knew one another before coming here. Then you, Mac, showed me the reason.”
For some reason her mind stuck on poodle
. “I did?”
“The Ro message. If Fourteen translates it while still at the cabin—” He waited.
“Kay could learn what it said before anyone else,” Mac finished. She began to pace, real hand rubbing at the false. “But how would he know I had such a message?” She stopped and whirled.
How could she have forgotten to tell him?
“Nik, the IU—”
“Has someone working for them at Base. We know.”
Of course they knew,
Mac told herself, feeling foolish. “It’s ’Sephe, isn’t it? She knew about Emily’s message. You put her there in the first place—to help the IU reach me. Right?”
She could see him shake his head, barely make out the gleam of reflected light that marked his eyes. “I put her there, yes. But she’s not the IU’s informant—and before you ask, you don’t want to know who it is.”
Mac bristled. “I most certainly do.”
“How many secrets do you want to carry around, Mac? Besides, you’ll meet this person again. Think you can act normally if you know?”
“What’s ‘normally’?” Mac exclaimed in disbelief. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to suspect everyone I know.”
He laughed. “Welcome to my world.”
“You can keep it,” Mac growled. In the ensuing silence, she listened to a trio of white-throated sparrows outside, contesting territory with song instead of subterfuge.
Lucky birds
. Finally she grumbled: “Okay. Don’t tell me. If I knew, I’d probably chuck whoever it is in the ocean and be done.”
“We’ll be watching,” Nik promised.
“You’d better.”
When had leaving an unknown informant among her friends become a lesser evil?
The eyes of dead owls gazed at her.
Not helping,
she told them. “If it wasn’t ’Sephe, how could Kay know about Em’s message?”
“He didn’t have to. We aren’t the only ones who’ve been waiting for Emily to contact you, Mac. You wouldn’t have had a moment’s privacy on Earth if the Ministry hadn’t stepped in and insisted you be left in peace. The Trisulians wouldn’t be the only ones to believe you’ve been receiving such messages all along, keeping them to yourself.”
“I have not!”
From his tone, he was amused by her protest, but all he said was: “To Kay, Mac, such secrecy would make perfect sense. And be an opportunity. Tell me. When I wasn’t here, did Kay ask about Emily?”
In how many ways was she a fool?
“Yes,” Mac said, the word bitter in her mouth. “About our friendship, how close we are—were. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but I went along. Tell me, Nik. Is there a memo about me at the consulate that says ‘totally gullible,’ or is it just obvious to any being who meets me?”
Nik took a step closer, the light playing over his face.
Regret. Something less definable.
“The only thing obvious about you, Mackenzie Connor,” he informed her, “is your heart.”
There was a conversation stopper.
Mac could feel her cheeks flaming.
He had to notice, but went on as if he didn’t. “Kay’s only worry would be his ability to understand a message from the Ro. So he finds a cryptologist interested in a jaunt to Little Misty Lake. It’s all a gamble, but one that could pay off. Looks like it has.”
“And I thought funding committees were cutthroat,” Mac muttered darkly.
“Don’t take it personally, Mac.” Nik took another step, and the light finally reached his eyes, their hazel dark with emotion. “Species advantage. Kay probably doesn’t know about the Eeling System yet—but be prepared for him to approve when he does find out. And this is only the beginning. The Gathering—you’ll have to tread very carefully. I don’t have to warn you about alien motives, how easy it is to believe you understand those around you, how suddenly everything can change.”
“I remember an earthquake,” she said tightly.
“We’ve people going over every bit of that data, Mac. When I have an answer, I’ll make sure you get it.” Nik paused and studied her face, a frown starting to form between his brows. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“What?”
“Leaving.”
It wasn’t about leaving her,
Mac thought. She knew him well enough by now to understand the source of his hesitation. It wasn’t about what warmed his eyes when he really looked at her.
It was about trust.
“Am I safe alone with them or not?” she asked bluntly. “I mean, other than the ever present risk of snoring, Fourteen’s warped sense of humor, and alien bondage rituals.”
Nik ached to say no. Mac could see it; part of her wanted to agree.
For reasons,
she admitted to herself,
that had nothing to do with aliens
. Then he pressed his lips together and gave her a reluctant nod. “Kay and Fourteen are accredited members of the IU, sent as your escorts. It’s no crime to be interested in what the Ro have to say—we all are. You seem to be enjoying each other’s company.” He waited for Mac to say something. She didn’t speak. “It still doesn’t feel right,” he finished, for the first time since they’d entered the outhouse showing a clear emotion—frustration.
On impulse, Mac tugged the shirt from Nik’s head. Conscious of him watching her, she untied the knot turning it into a hat, then gave the garment a hard shake. Dust and a few dead flies joined the motes in the sunbeams. The beams flickered and brightened as if a cloud had gone by. “Here.” She handed it back. “You’ll want this on in the woods.”
“Thanks.” He pulled it over his shoulders. “Your ride should be here tomorrow, probably after the weather goes through. You’re sure you’ll be okay, Mac? I could arrange for someone to stop in tonight.”
“Worry about the aliens,” she told him. “I’ve hosted fund-raisers.”
“There’s that,” he acknowledged solemnly, that dimple showing as he finished fastening his shirt. A truly serious look. “I hope Fourteen can do something with the message. We’ve had no luck.”
Mac took a deep breath, that nightmare image of Emily—her voice, her face, her desperation—swelling up behind her eyes. “If he does find out what it says, what do I do about Kay?”
Nik shook his head. “Nothing. He has as much right to the information as any of us, Mac, and the immunity to do with it as he sees fit. Representatives of the IU, including Kay and Fourteen—and now you—are outside Ministry jurisdiction. We can—and will—follow him if he leaves, monitor any transmissions, delay him with bureaucracy to a point. But that’s it. We can’t stop him sending anything he wants to his government.” A gleam of teeth that could only be described as wolfish. “Though the IU may smack his eyestalks afterward.”
Nik’s smile faded. “Just don’t lose either of them in the bush. Or yourself. Okay? And, Mac?” He cupped one hand, then tipped it over, as if proving it was empty. “The message might not be from Emily at all. Don’t get your hopes up.”