Migration (31 page)

If the arrival had been a Dhryn Progenitor, with her cloud of horrific feeders, the carapaces of heroes would have hung alongside poets on the Immortals’ Bridge.

But it was the vast Sinzi starliner,
Wonder’s Progress II,
filled to capacity with twenty-five thousand, three hundred and fourteen souls, a mix of tourists, actors, and drama critics, members of the founding species of the Interspecies Union plus diplomats from a hundred worlds, en route to the Imrya’s famed Festival.

To die with no more advance warning than they gave.

That which is Dhryn must pause the Journey.

Feeders, replete and heavy, return to cling to their carriers. The carriers rise from the empty husk of a world to link together, then rejoin the Progenitor. The Progenitor accepts what is brought, gracious as dawn to the day it brings.

Done with care; done with haste. Any pause is delay. Any delay is threat.

The Journey continues, to the relief of all that is Dhryn.

“
H
OW ABOUT FROM here?” Mac tilted her head back to admire the distant pile of sticks. “What do you think?”

Kay came to where she stood and brought his recorder up to his upper left eyestalk, peering through it in the direction she recommended. “So long as you are sure it won’t fall on us, Mac,” he fussed.

She laughed. “That nest’s been up there since I was little, and likely before that. So long as the pine lasts, it will.”

“Remarkable.” The Trisulian took a few more images, using one hand to hold his small round device and his other arm held perpendicular to his body, as though having an eyestalk preoccupied affected his balance slightly.

Or maybe he thought the posture made him look artistic,
Mac thought to herself, as always careful not to jump to conclusions about aliens. “Are you game to find the next?” she asked when he was satisfied.

“Lead on, O Guide.”

“This way.”

Mac followed faint memory and a fainter trail deeper into the woods north of the cabin. It had been easier than she’d hoped to keep both aliens occupied. When she’d returned to the cabin, she’d found Fourteen in the common room and Kay banished to the porch, where he was watching the other alien through the window. Meanwhile, Fourteen, having pushed the furniture and carpets against the walls, had begun arranging everything small and portable he could find in patterns on the floor. Completely oblivious to her or Kay, he scurried among the items on all fours like some demented carrion beetle, pushing and pulling each into new locations. The floor was already littered with utensils, plates, food containers, and Mac’s childhood collection of porcelain frogs, all casting tiny distorted shadows in the sunlight coming through the porch.

Kay had agreed wholeheartedly—or whatever would be the corresponding body part for his kind—to Mac’s suggestion they leave genius at work and hike out to the owls’ nests to make the recordings she wanted.

Mac was satisfied. Fourteen was—presumably—working on Emily’s message, her father would get his nest images after all, and, as per Nik’s instructions, she was keeping the aliens out of trouble.

A trifling worry. Worst case, the bioamplifier in her bone marrow would locate them for anyone looking.
Not,
Mac told herself firmly,
that she would get lost
. A few years weren’t going to change her forest beyond recognition.

Mac halted when the trail, a generous word for a slot of mud last used by a moose with a healthy digestive tract, took a steep drop. Steeper than she remembered. So steep, in fact, she could hold out her hand and almost touch the tops of the trees below. She stretched out to try.

“Is this the way, Mac?” In spite of his anxiety over plummeting nests, Kay didn’t appear worried about a plummeting trail. Then again, he was a much better hiker than Mac had expected. His caftan, its variegated colors almost perfect camouflage in the shade-dappled forest, didn’t snag on branches.
Certainly better on foot than paddling a canoe,
she grinned to herself. A little too good at times. Although because of Mac’s height, Kay took two steps for each of hers and regularly bumped into her from behind.

“I don’t think so,” Mac said, backing away from what would be a challenging descent with ropes, let alone with a Trisulian on her heels. “Let’s go around. That way.”

Hiking—without getting lost—took a respectable amount of concentration. Mac had gradually relaxed, able to push the rest of the universe—from vanishing spies to Dhryn—aside, for the moment at least. Besides, the maples and birch of the upper slopes were still unfurling flowers, not leaves. Their branches let through warmth and sunlight, sufficient to trigger a blaze of early blooming lilies and other wildflowers underfoot.

The black flies had even taken the afternoon off, much to Kay’s relief. Mac didn’t have the heart to warn him such reprieves were temporary until summer. Whenever they approached a meadow, Mac checked for bears, groggy from hibernation and likely to be with young, but the largest mammal they encountered was a porcupine, dozing in the crotch of an ancient apple tree.

They’d found two nests so far, both high, wide, and messy platforms originally built by eagles or ravens and preempted by pairs of great gray owls. No one was home. If owls still used them, the young would have fledged by now and be perching in neighboring trees.

The next nest wasn’t the one Mac had been looking for, not that they were lost, but she was delighted to find it. A promising cavity beckoned in a towering stump, riven by lightning years ago. The rest of the tree lay in pieces at their feet. “Ah,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Pellets!” Sure enough, neat finger-length cylinders of compressed fur and tiny white bones lay tumbled among the logs beneath the cavity.

“Look.” Mac picked a nice fresh one to show Kay.

“What is it?” he asked, an eyestalk bending closer.
Curiosity or a way to change focal length?
she wondered.

“A pellet. The indigestible remains of the owl’s prey,” explained Mac. “Likely from a Boreal Owl. Handy for research.” She regarded the pellet fondly. “The bird just coughs it up.” She began teasing the fur apart. “Yup. See? Vole bones.”

“Usish!”
Kay scrambled backward. “Get that away from me! Disgusting Human!”

It took Mac a fair amount of convincing, and a couple of threats, to get the Trisulian anywhere near the tree again. Once there, he stood like a statue, eyestalks riveted on the cavity as if on guard against falling pellets.

“C’mon,” Mac coaxed. “The owls aren’t active in the daytime. Besides, regurgitation is a normal function. You can’t tell me you’ve never needed to remove something from your
douscent
. Same idea.”

“I most certainly can,” he huffed. “It’s disgusting. Scandalous! I insist we return to the cabin this instant!”

She planted her feet. “After you’ve recorded it.”

Kay whipped up his device, clicked it in the general direction of the tree, and started walking away as quickly as the terrain permitted. Following behind, Mac grinned and tucked the pellet into her pocket to examine later.
Not so much raven,
she judged,
as fussy old bachelor.

It didn’t take long for Mac to regret her glib reference to Kay’s digestive pouch. He remained offended and silent. The trip back to the cabin took on the rigor of an endurance race. It helped that they were going mainly downhill, with their return path clearly marked by footprints—especially those in moose droppings. The race aspect was purely Kay, who not only appeared to know exactly where he was going, but couldn’t get there—or perhaps it was away from her vomiting owls—fast enough.

Mac finally let him scurry off into the distance, dropping her pace back to a more reasonable amble. It was too hot to rush and she was too annoyed with his reaction to be particularly gracious. “By the time I’m back, Emily,” she promised aloud, grabbing a sapling to help her clamber past a puddle, “I’ll be civil. But honestly. Even sea cucumbers barf.” She amused herself with visions of the dignified Trisulian attempting to deal with having dropped a knife or coffee cup into his precious
douscent
.

By the time Mac reached the last stretch of trail, the sun was low on the horizon. It would be bright out on the lake for a while yet, but under the pines the lighting was already growing dim. She didn’t mind. This portion of the forest contained fond memories. There were a few more deadfalls, the closest of which she earmarked to raid for wood for a nice campfire if they stayed long enough.
And if the aliens liked fires.
The rest could shelter varying hares and ptarmigan. Her father’s “owl feeding stations.” The thought made her laugh.

A laugh that died on her lips as Mac entered the clearing behind the cabin and saw the kitchen door was open.

Not just open, but hanging at an angle from one hinge. The screen was shredded, as if by a bear’s claws.

It wouldn’t be the first time a famished spring bear took a walk through the kitchen.
It would be the first time it found aliens there.

Mac broke into a run, feet soundless on the pine needles and soil, but making plenty of noise herself as she took the stairs two at a time. “Big Scary Human Coming!” she shouted as she rushed into the kitchen. “Fourteen! Kay!”

The kitchen was fine.

No mess.

No bear.

Mac looked back at the ruined screen and frowned.
How much of a temper did Kay have?
“You’re going to pay for that,” she vowed, walking into the common room. “The door wasn’t locked. Oh . . .” Mac stopped with her hands on either side of the doorframe.

The Ro!
Her first thought. But they left glistening slime with their destruction. No slime here.
Not the Ro, then.

But there was destruction, of a sort. Mac picked her way into the room, eyes surveying everything, careful to touch nothing. One of the couches—two small tables. They’d been tipped over.
A struggle?
The organized, if bizarre, arrangements Fourteen had been creating were gone; the items he’d used swept into piles. Mac picked up a yellow piece of porcelain. A frog’s leg. Not much broken otherwise. It was more as if the Myg’s arrangements had been tidied, but in a rush.
Why?

She searched the rest of the cabin, unsure why she stopped calling out the aliens’ names. Fourteen’s room first. The door was open. Mac peered in and snorted. No destruction; the Myg was about as tidy as a second-year Pred in June. Bedding was in a lump, there were clothes strewn all over the floor, and—Mac sniffed, then hurriedly closed the door.
She’d air the room out later
.

Kay’s room was a pleasant surprise. The bed was immaculate; he might not have slept in it.
Well,
Mac thought reasonably,
for all she knew he slept on his hairy head.
No sign of clothing or baggage, not that she was sure he’d brought any personal belongings. He’d worn the same or identical garments every day.

Quickly, Mac checked the remaining rooms, then went out on the porch. Nothing. No note, no sign of either of them. She began to feel a sick certainty they’d left her behind, but why?
An emergency?
She checked the sky with an involuntary shudder. It couldn’t have looked more normal, evening blue, curled wisps of high cloud harbingers of the rain scheduled to move through tomorrow.

Or had Nik been wrong about the two aliens?
Like some bad spy vid, were Fourteen and Kay somehow traitors on a cosmic scale, their credentials fake, the envelope itself a forgery capable of fooling the Ministry’s finest? Had their promise to take her to the Gathering, to work on the Dhryn, been nothing more than a ruse? Had they’d taken what they’d come to get?
Emily’s message?

Mac gave herself a shake.
She could be fooled, Em, but not Nik.
“Then there’s the whole poodle plot,” she told the forest, her lips twitching. “Quite the master-minds, those two.”