Faint. “I do not understand. How can it be so? They can talk?” It was almost plaintive.
Save her from cloistered Dhryn, Em,
Mac sighed to herself, the problem yawning like a pit before her feet. Brymn had warned her that the Haven Dhryn, those who stayed on their world, avoided contact or information about other places or other life. Why should they care about what would never matter to them? She’d seen it for herself. “That which is Dhryn” was enough.
Not anymore. Not for Parymn, if he was to survive
. No doubt the others here were anxious for the answers to a long list of questions. No doubt everyone from physiologists to weapons designers would be eager for the answers his living body could provide.
Em, why did it have to be a Dhryn she knew?
Mac planned to sit down and have a talk with herself, a long one, later. Likely with something stronger than beer.
In the meantime, how to solve this? “Think of them as Dhryn,” she ventured.
He closed his eyes.
Rejection
. “Only the Progenitor decides what is Dhryn.”
There was the rub, Em.
The Progenitor—any of them—wasn’t here.
She hoped.
Things wouldn’t be this calm if a Progenitor’s ship, with its millions of feeder Dhryn, were in Sol System, or orbiting Earth. She’d dreamed it often enough. There’d be alarms, news, panic, running for shelters, for ships . . .
Nik had urged her to hurry
.
Mac licked her lips. “Are they here?” she asked without turning from the Dhryn, proud she sounded so matter-of-fact about nightmare.
“Just him,” Nik answered.
She shuddered with relief, closing her eyes for an instant.
“Do not . . .” Parymn began weakly, ending with a handless arm flailing.
Mac looked over her shoulder.
A mistake
—they were all staring at her, waiting for something worthwhile. “He’s upset,” she stated the obvious, then went back to Parymn. “You said the Progenitor sent you to talk to me. Why? What about?”
“You must not . . . interact with the not-Dhryn. I forbid it.” Weaker. She wasn’t sure how conscious he was—or perhaps he wouldn’t tell her anything more while not-Dhryn were present.
This particular Dhryn, his upbringing, was the problem
. The Progenitor Mac had met on Haven had been fully aware of other species, curious, in fact, to meet Mac, an alien, in person. The Dhryn had accepted membership within the IU, had their gate to the Naralax Transect, although not-Dhryn traffic was forbidden to their home system and Haven. They’d maintained colonies in other systems to take overflow population, those colonies freely conducting trade with other species. Brymn himself had been fluent in Human languages as well as Instella, although he’d been, she’d freely admit, unusual for any species.
“The Progenitor values the abilities of all Dhryn,” Mac began cautiously.
Interspecies communication, Em, is carpeted quicksand. With hair-trigger wasps on top.
“Is this not so?”
The eye coverings opened again. “All that is Dhryn must serve.” Stronger, with that familiar sarcastic note.
Good
.
“So the Progenitor must value my ability to talk to the not-Dhryn.” She rephrased hastily: “She sees that ability as having use to Her, to all that is Dhryn. Thus I must use my ability. For all that is Dhryn.”
Stop now,
she told herself.
His tiny lips pursed, then moved in and out a few times as if hunting teeth no longer there.
Just when Mac was about to try another tack, Parymn’s lips formed a tight smile. “Your reasoning would have more impact if you weren’t talking like an
oomling
.” Mac felt a thrumming in the floor as the Dhryn added what he knew she couldn’t hear. By her estimate, adults used infrasound for more than a third of their vocabulary and most of its emotional overtone.
Even Brymn had had difficulty with the concept of their differing auditory ranges. He’d been willing to try, at least.
Parymn Ne Sa Las,
Mac knew without any doubt,
would not.
“You understand me well enough, Parymn Ne Sa Las. Do you understand them?” she gestured to the others, still silent and waiting. When he gave her a baleful look, she nodded. “I do. So you are to talk to me and the Progenitor needs me to talk to them. All that is Dhryn needs me to talk to them. Will you permit it or not?”
A final vibration through the floor. Another unhappy look. “I somehow doubt, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol, that you require my permission.”
She crouched lower. “I ask your cooperation, Parymn Ne Sa Las.”
He considered so long, eyes almost closed, that Mac feared this time he was unconscious. Then: “You have it. For now.”
“Thank you.” She stood, giving her sweater a tug to straighten it. “First order of business—to look after you, Parymn Ne Sa Las. Why did you—” Mac stopped there.
On second thought, she probably didn’t want to know why Parymn had attacked the furniture.
Doubtless something alien and complicated about not-Dhryn upholstery. “To serve the Progenitor,” she said instead, “you must look and behave with pride, as an
erumisah
. Even among the not-Dhryn.”
“That is so.” His hands fluttered along his skin, explored patches of congealing fluids. “Bathe. I must bathe.”
“I’ll make arrangements. What else?”
“Clothing.” Fingers trailed along his eye ridges and his mouth turned down. Mac added cosmetics to her mental list.
“What else? Food?”
His eyes closed again.
Rejection
.
It was a beginning,
Mac decided. She turned back to her observers and made herself smile.
Anchen’s fingers rose and fell, the silver rings making a waterfall of light down her sides.
Approval? Or aggravation at the delay
. Mac wasn’t about to guess. “What was said?” the Sinzi asked her.
“Every word?”
The beaked alien leaned forward, her body quivering.
Eagerness? Or a chill,
Mac thought. “Yes, we will need every word, every nuance.” The Imrya, still silent, lifted her recorder in agreement.
“In-depth analysis can be done later,” the other Human snapped. “We don’t have time to waste. The gist, Dr. Connor. Summarize.”
“Summarize.”
Mr. Brown Suit had something up his
. . . Mac raised her eyebrow and caught Nik’s cautionary look.
Fine
. “To start with, this isn’t just any Dhryn. I can’t imagine how he got here, but this is Parymn Ne Sa Las. I met him on Haven. He’s a decision-maker, someone who speaks for his Progenitor. He’s the closest thing to an ambassador the Dhryn could have sent us.”
This raised eyebrows and elbows, as well as promoted an almost frantic moment of facial grooming by the Trisulian. Only Anchen seemed unaffected by the news. And Nik, who Mac doubted would show his reaction to an explosion unintentionally.
“How he came to be here, I can tell you, Dr. Connor,” the beaked alien offered. “Our patrol stopped a starship, no larger than one of our single-pilot vessels. It contained him alone and was operating on a preprogrammed path to our world, N’not’k. He wore no clothes, was already damaged, and would not communicate with us. He grew increasingly agitated by our attempts to do so. We brought him to the IU consulate, where our Sinzi-ra had no better luck with him, but understood the significance of the artifact within his ship, that it was a message indicating he should be brought here, to the Gathering.”
“To Earth,” Anchen corrected gently. “I would show Mac the artifact, if you please.”
One of the staff went over to a wall and pressed on a particular spot. A drawer opened from the wall and he reached in, pulling out a bag identical to those in Mac’s closet, but a fraction of the size.
Mac’s eyes widened as she saw the black velvetlike lining of the drawer before it closed again, then gave the rest of the white wall a suspicious look.
Had that lining been of the fabric the Dhryn used to hide from the Ro?
She wouldn’t be surprised.
The Sinzi opened the bag, passing its contents to Mac.
Mac took what at first glance seemed a plain disk of some gray metallic substance, cool at first, then warming to the touch. She lifted it within the curve of her thumb and forefinger. Held in better light, there was a dense spiral marking one side. No, Mac realized, rubbing her thumb over it lightly, the spiral was formed by something inlaid into the metal. At what could be compass points were small raised areas, three intact, the fourth hollowed as if something had been removed from it.
As “artifacts” went, this one was neither old nor beautiful. Mac looked at Nik, who gave a tiny shrug, then back to the Sinzi. “What is it?”
“A biological sample, Dr. Connor. A sample of you, in fact.” A finger reached over Mac’s shoulder, the pointed tip of its nail tracing the spiral. Another feathered one of Mac’s curls. “If removed, you would recognize this part by its pigmentation, perhaps. Or its length might be sufficient.”
“A hair,” Mac breathed, eyes wide. “Mine.” From the braid she’d given in
grathnu
to the Progenitor on Haven. She’d thought it would have been digested or discarded long before now.
The nail tip touched one of the raised dots. “Beneath each of these, a single intact epithelial cell. One was removed for analysis. Your genetic code was, of course, in the report sent to all IU consulates and officials.”
“Of course,” Mac said faintly. The cells would have come from the skin of her scalp or hands; probably thousands had been lodged in the braid, given how she’d habitually fussed with it.
“Make no mistake. This was prepared by someone who not only knew exactly which biological materials would bring you and this Parymn Ne Sa Las into contact, but that we would be capable of interpreting and acting on this—message. Succinct, practical. It speaks the language of science rather than species, yet acknowledges shared individual experience.” The Sinzi took the disk from Mac. “I remain impressed.”
“You promised we wouldn’t waste time, Anchen, time we don’t have.” This, predictably, from the man Mac had now dubbed “Mr. Brown Suit.” “It doesn’t matter how he came here! What we need to know is why! What does he want?”
As the latter part of this appeared directed at Mac, she chose to answer. “Access to a sonic shower,” she informed him, “though we’ll have to take off the safeties and set it to cook pie. Several bands of silk this wide.” She held out her arms. “About four meters long. Any solid color but yellow. Jellied mushrooms. Lipstick and eye liner. Assorted shades.” She fastened her best “don’t mess with me” glare on him. “He can barely talk in this condition, let alone think to answer questions.”
Mr. Brown Suit took an abrupt step toward Mac, his face red and mouth working. The consular staff followed, as if alarmed, but Nik put himself in front of Mac first. “Sir. This is why Dr. Connor is here,” he told the other in a low urgent voice that nonetheless carried perfectly.
I’m right here!
Mac frowned at Nik’s back, quite willing to scrap on her own behalf. “She’s our only chance to make use of this resource; the IU has graciously granted us access to her expertise. Let her work.”
The other shoved Nik aside—that Nik allowed it told Mac a great deal about who Mr. Brown Suit probably was—but didn’t come any closer to where Mac stood, barefoot and still. “Do it,” he told her, pale eyes drilling into hers. “But do it knowing Humans joined the list of confirmed Dhryn targets last night. A helpless refining station. Families—” His voice broke on the word. “Do it knowing the Secretary General of the Ministry has declared humanity under imminent threat. From them.” He didn’t need to raise his voice. He didn’t need to point to the Dhryn.
Threat to the species,
Mac said to herself, ashamed she’d taken offense.
Where on that scale do any of us fall, Em?
“Whatever Parymn Ne Sa Las requires will be arranged immediately,” Anchen promised; Mac didn’t doubt her in the least. She gestured to the ceiling and Mac paid attention to the clusters of vidbots for the first time.
Too used to them everywhere else on Earth,
she realized with some irony,
to notice
. “There are monitoring devices throughout this room; staff will await your needs. Simply ask. We will prepare our questions.” She began to leave, her long fingers sweeping the other Human, Imrya, and beaked alien with her, leaving Nik and the two staff.
“Oh, no. Wait! Anchen, please.” Mac stopped short of lunging for one of those fingers. “I can’t stay here. I’ve work to do with my team.” She glanced at the huddled Dhryn. “Now more than ever.”
“Now, this is your work.”
“Yes. No. Not all of it. The Dhryn don’t understand themselves. Don’t you see—no matter what he can tell us, we’ll have to learn more.” Mac took a deep breath and said firmly: “Your word I’ll be allowed to spend part of every day working on the origins problem.”
“Nonsense.” Mr. Brown Suit again. “Questioning him is the only priority.”
And she thought a righteous Mudge could set her blood boiling
. “I’ll be free to come and go,” Mac added, forcing the words between her teeth. “Four hours a day with my research team, when I choose.”
“Absolutely not!” “Three and you sleep here.”
The words overlapped, but it was Anchen’s counteroffer that silenced the Human’s protest.
Outranked and knows it.
Mac ignored him, sure she was right, that what she wanted was important. “Three, I sleep in my own room, and I can consult with my people at any time no matter where I am.” She took a gamble and quoted the alien’s own words about her work with the Myg. “There is deep significance within our combination.”
“How so?”
How?
Mac hadn’t actually expected to explain.
Note to self, Em. Never gamble with alien terminology.
Her lack of answer stretched toward awkward.
“Clearly, Anchen, there has developed an interwoven circularity of purpose,” Nik stated.