Migration (37 page)

“I’m fit now, Anchen.” Beyond eager, Mac came within a breath of asking for access to reading material, then changed her mind.
Learned the hard way, Em. Check the fine print.
“Anchen, I’ll need my things, from Norcoast. And to contact my family and friends—let them know I’m all right.”
Even if she couldn’t tell the whole truth
. In Mac’s firm opinion, one mysterious disappearance was enough for a lifetime.

“I will look into appropriate arrangements.” It wasn’t a resounding yes, but it wasn’t no either.
And no one would miss her for a couple of weeks, anyway,
Mac reminded herself. “In the meantime, I advise you to more fully recuperate,” the Sinzi bowed, a complex and graceful movement Mac didn’t even attempt to emulate. “You and the other delegates face a daunting task.”

Mac nodded.
Daunting covered it
.

She’d been ready to go into space, to work on some alien world.

Instead, she was in the one place in Human-settled space where Humans held no power at all. Where they were only permitted on business for the IU.

After showing Mac how to contact consular staff with any needs, which involved nothing more difficult than pressing her hand anywhere on a wall and asking out loud, Anchen left as swiftly and silently as she’d arrived. Mac watched the sea life for a while—an admirable selection of local fauna she would have believed no more than images suspended inside the table, except for the convincing way those animals with eyes reacted to her presence. It begged the question: could they see her because they really were in the room or were they able to see her because she was an image sent to where they really were?

There was headache potential,
she decided,
if it wasn’t enough a weasel had tried to split hers open with his gonads
. Mac grinned to herself. Which would make one of those stories to tell Emily. One day.

Back in the bedroom, Mac found Mudge, to all outward signs, still asleep in his raincoat.
And if she believed that?
She sat on the bed, briefly startled by its ability to immediately form to her body. “That can’t be comfortable, Oversight,” she observed.

Silence. Then, a faint hoarse whisper: “You’d be surprised.” He didn’t move. She might be talking to a stuffed yellow ball. Wearing boots. “Are we alone now?”

“I doubt it.”

More silence, then a slightly mortified: “I didn’t see any ’bots.”

The innocence of those used to legal surveillance, obvious and familiar.
“I was going to order lunch.” Mac glanced at the long rays of sunlight on the terrace. “Breakfast,” she amended.

“You’re sure? Bother.” Mudge unfolded with a groan, pulling off his raincoat. Beneath, his shirt was wrinkled and sweat-stained. He glared at the room as if its crisp surfaces were to blame for his condition. “And it’s supper. New Zealand. We arrived around midnight local time and you’ve been out of it for almost fifteen hours. It’s now four in the afternoon. Fall, by the way, not spring. Nippy.” He rubbed his eyes and peered at her. “And tomorrow, not today.”

Mac snorted. “I can do the conversions, Oversight. Don’t tell me you’ve been in that chair the entire time.”

“No.” His tone did not encourage curiosity. Nor did his expression, with its classic Mudge-stubborn clench to the jaw.

She ignored both. “What happened?”

“It’s not important. Order the food. I haven’t eaten since getting here.”

Mac smoothed the fabric over her knees. “I can wait.”

“You can—” he started to bluster, then grimaced. “And you would, too. Very well.” He slid lower in the jelly-chair, heels digging lines into the sand of the floor. “After they carried you out of the lev, they tried to leave me in it.” Mudge stretched his hands over his head. “I didn’t agree,” he said simply.

Which doubtless meant numerous threats to contact authorities of every ilk, all delivered at significant volume.
She had heard some of it. Mac shook her head in wonder. “And that worked?”

“No. They locked me in the hold and ignored me for quite some time. Luckily, someone already at the consulate who knew me heard I was being forced to leave against my will. He straightened your friends out in a hurry, found out where you’d been taken, brought me along. So here I am.”

Leaving Mac with two pressing questions. One Mudge couldn’t answer.
Why had that someone helped him stay where the IU was hosting a very secret meeting?
One he could. “Why didn’t you go?” she asked.

His round face reddened. “How can you ask me that, Norcoast?” Mudge objected gruffly. He got to his feet and shook his finger at the light fixture hanging from the ceiling. “Think I’d let you carry her off to who knows where, hurt and unconscious?” he told it. “Think I’d take a chance you meant to finish the job the Trisulian started?” He looked back to Mac, his eyes round with distress. “What kind of old friend would do that?”

Old friend?
There was a novel interpretation of fourteen years of conflict.
It had led to a certain depth of mutual understanding,
Mac conceded. But not to expect Mudge to stand up for her as though she was part of his Wilderness Trust.
Proving him a better friend than some,
her inner voice whispered.

It didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. Mac fought the warmth of having someone think of her first, aware above all else that Mudge didn’t belong here. It wasn’t just the IU. She could hear Nik’s warning:
“Don’t let anyone close.”
It wasn’t meant for her protection alone. Mudge could have been safely, if angrily, on his way back to house arrest by now.

“I suppose hugging is out of the question,” Mac said, smiling at his alarmed look. “Thought so. Supper do?”

Despite her good intentions, which included regaining her strength as quickly as possible, supper was wasted on Mac. Her stomach rebelled the instant the steaming platters arrived—brought by courteous staff of some humanoid-type species she didn’t know, clad in pale yellow uniforms. They set it out on the table on the terrace, where Mac spent the meal watching enviously as Mudge ate his portion, then accepted most of hers.

“Splendid,” he informed her when done, wiping his lips and sipping the last of his wine. “You’re sure you don’t want anything else?”

Mac assessed the status of the few spoonfuls of soup she’d forced down.
Uncertain
. “Quite sure.” She gazed into the distance, estimating there wasn’t much time until full sunset. The view was of water, with perhaps the hint of islands on the horizon. She’d taken a quick dizzying look over the rail to confirm they were on land. A great granite cliff, to be exact, sheer enough that incoming waves struck and rose in gouts of foam.
She’d have to check the tides
. This building was a white curved tower, four stories high as Humans measured, the curve another s-bend like the mirror, following the edge of the cliff. These rooms were on what Mac estimated was the third floor, though she assumed the building extended below ground, into the rock itself.

She was no closer to knowing what to do about Mudge,
Mac admitted to herself. Nik might help, but she’d have to wait for him to contact her. His people had brought them here, presumably willingly, so he either knew where she was, or would find out.
Didn’t mean she’d hear from him anytime soon.

“What do you know about the consulate—this place?” Mac asked Mudge, not hopeful.

He surprised her. “I applied for a job here once, so I made sure I was pretty familiar with it.”

“Let me guess,” she smiled. “Shuttle pilot.”

“I was young, Norcoast. Alien worlds sounded more interesting. What I know isn’t up-to-date, though.”

“Tell me about it. Anything,” Mac pressed. She’d learned to value knowing her surroundings.

According to Mudge, who tended to describe things with as many numbers as possible, the consulate occupied a stretch of coast five kilometers long and three wide, along the southwestern edge of New Zealand’s South Island, occupying the tip of one of many fjords that fingered the Tasman Sea. No roads or walking trails led here. The only docking facilities were for consular traffic, and those only by air. The complex itself had grown over time into a sprawl of connected buildings, a few Human-built, most contributed by those handful of species interested in a more substantial presence on Earth, the rest being the original constructions of the Sinzi themselves.

The nearest Human habitation was the town of Te Anau, the hub for those seeking the vast wilderness preserved along the coast, the Te Whāipounamu. Accustomed to tourists tramping through in all seasons, few residents took much notice of the consulate or its visitors. In fact, local New Zealanders were so accustomed to aliens wandering their streets that most shop signs were in both English and Instella.

There had been many obvious reasons for setting the consulate here: a temperate climate, if you didn’t mind meters of rain per year; nearby mountain ranges offering microclimates from lush forest to desert to snow-pack; even the lease arrangement between New Zealand and the Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs, who acted as titular landlord to the IU. Less obviously, the area was off the beaten track and sparsely populated, making it easier to isolate alien from Human and vice versa. And, though no one said it out loud, if anything nonterrestrial was released and spread, it wouldn’t be the first time New Zealand had had to deal with foreign biologies.

Mudge stopped, rubbing his face self-consciously. “You let me talk too much, Norcoast.”

Mac gestured to her head. “With this? I’m more than happy to listen to someone else. Interesting stuff. Thanks, Oversight.”

He harrumphed, managing to sound pleased. “Did I mention the trout fishing? It’s quite famous here. I’d assume at least some visitors to the consulate indulge.”

Mac contemplated a fast-flowing stream filled with aliens in paisley shorts and fly-fishing hats. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” she chuckled, “but it might the trout.”

“Norcoast. I know you should rest, but . . .” She recognized that anxious wrinkle between his eyes. Mudge was preparing to fuss over something.

Warily. “But what?”

“Why did they bring us here? Why the consulate?”

Right to the heart of it. Again, typical
. Not that Mac had ever had reason to doubt Mudge’s intelligence. He probably knew as much about the research underway at Base as she did.

Evade,
Mac decided. It wasn’t a moral choice—her head was too fuzzy to attempt anything as profoundly complicated as falsehood. “The IU must have questions about Emily’s message—and the Trisulian, Kay.” Or not-Kay.
Once-Kay?
Mac wasn’t sure how one referred to an abandoned symbiont.

“But they didn’t bring you here for questioning after the Chasm.”

“No,” Mac answered, wondering where Mudge was going with this. “The IU had people on the ship that brought me back. I answered their questions—”
for days on end, hazed with grief and pain, repeating the same details over and over and over,
“—and they have copies of everything I know. I’m sure the Ministry kept them informed since.” Easy to picture Nikolai Trojanowski in this place, delivering the latest recordings of her dreams into Anchen’s long fingers. Mac shivered.

She hadn’t intended it as a distraction, but it worked. “You’re getting cold,” Mudge noted with a scowl. “Let’s go inside.”

“I’m warm enough,” said Mac truthfully. The terrace floor was warm underfoot; she suspected it generated heat to combat the chill of evening. As for herself, the Sinzi’s gown was either insulating or warming; regardless, it kept the skin it sheltered at a comfortable temperature. “I like it out here.”
It was home,
she thought, the familiar scent of salt and seaweed, the tireless argument of wave against stone so normal she felt as though her bones had melted into the chair.
Probably couldn’t stand if I wanted to, Em.