Migration (5 page)

They. Them.
Mac didn’t doubt who’d been keeping Mudge away from her. The Ministry. The arm of Human government that dealt with offworld issues of interest to humanity, now patently interfering on Earth.

Answering the question of how much they relied on her willing silence,
Mac told herself, feeling cold. If they could impede the movement of a government official, however annoying, who knew what other powers they’d been granted since declaring the Dhryn a threat to the Human species?
Obviously no paralysis of jurisdictions in the way.
Given the circumstances, Mac supposed such streamlining was reasonable, probably even commendable.

She just preferred her bureaucracy a little more on the cumbersome side, with things like forms, delays, and names attached.

Mudge was distracted by students with trays crowding past him, forced to lean sideways to avoid a close encounter with chowder; distracted by her own thoughts, Mac was grateful for the reprieve.

She’d drawn too much comfort in the lack of news, believed it impossible to keep something as noteworthy as attacks on entire worlds a secret, assured herself she’d be among those to know.
Had she been naïve?

What might be happening?

Enough,
Mac scolded herself, reining in her imagination. It wasn’t as if knowing would make any difference in her life. She was packed for the field; she had experiments to run. So what if the Ministry had reserved to itself, and presumably key leaders of Earthgov, the right to decide how much truth to release about the Dhryn? That was their job. The press releases had been masterworks of reassurance. “The Dhryn posed an unspecified hazard.” Late-night comics joked about explosive alien flatulence. “The Dhryn had gone missing.” Enterprising, if unscrupulous, individuals advertised colonization rights on their abandoned worlds. “System approach controls were to report any sightings.” Shipping schedules and security hadn’t changed.

Avoiding panic, keeping order in space-bound traffic, concealing needful preparations for defense or attack. Those were valid reasons.

The truth might come out in years, never, or this afternoon. Mac feared the timing would depend more on how soon the crisis grew out of control than on anything more sensible. But she wasn’t a politician.

She was someone who understood the need to protect others. Maybe secrecy was the best way. It wasn’t hers, mind you.
But they hadn’t asked her opinion
.

“Pardon? What did you say?” Mudge demanded. His rainsuit squeaked as he turned to face her.

“Nothing.” Mac pressed her fingertips, real and artificial, against the tabletop. It resisted without effort, being as hard as the truth.
Truth
. She licked her lips, trying to think of the best approach. “It was a mistake to come here, Oversight,” she told him at last. “You have to leave. Now.”

He settled deeper into his chair.

Mac closed her eyes briefly, then gave in. “Let’s continue this in my office.”

She’d picked one of the smaller tables, off to the side. It didn’t share the ocean view afforded by the rest of the room, though it made a decent spot for watching hockey or vids when those were playing. It was, however, close to an exit. Mac had grown convinced of the value of such things. Now, spotting the intent pair approaching them as Mudge stood up, she was even more grateful. “Don’t talk to anyone,” she hissed. “Out this door, left to the end of the hall. Take the lift to the third floor, last office on the right. Wait for me there. And don’t touch anything,” she added hastily, suddenly beset by the image of Mudge rampaging through her drawers. “Go!”

He walked away as John Ward came up to introduce his companion, a companion who not only gave the departing Mudge a curious look, but was also someone Mac hadn’t expected to meet again—and certainly not here.

“Mac. This is Dr. Persephone Stewart, my—our new theoretical statistician. She arrived ahead of schedule.” To say John was beaming was an understatement. He practically radiated joy. His companion smiled at him, then at Mac.

Emily would say this Dr. Stewart had done her homework,
Mac decided. An older, but athletic figure, their new statistician was dressed to blend in a casual, not-too-trendy shirt and skirt. An interesting personality was hinted at by intricate rows of red, bronze, and turquoise beads braided scalp-tight over the top of her head like a tapestry cap, dense black hair below framing her ears and neck like ebony mist. Slung casually over one shoulder was a well-used portable keyboard. No wonder the students in the gallery were tracking Dr. Stewart’s every move. John, hovering at her side, was patently smitten.

“Call me ’Sephe,” invited the tall dark woman, her smile as magic and mischievous as Mac remembered. “Everyone does.”

Oh, she remembered the smile. And the name.
And more. Mac remembered the weapons, ready in each hand, as this woman guarded her against the Ro. ’Sephe might well be a statistician.

She also worked for the Ministry, not Norcoast.
Why was she here? Why now?

Mac’s mouth dried.
Something had changed
.

“Everyone calls me Mac. Nice to meet you,” she said calmly, offering her hand.

But Mac wasn’t sure if it was in welcome or self-defense.

T
HE OUTER RIDGE of Castle Inlet curled its arm against the Pacific, hoarding an expanse of coastline virtually untouched by Human intervention for over three hundred years. It was a steep, tree-encrusted coast, where eagles perched at the bottom of clouds and rivers gnawed the growing bones of mountains.

The land might trap the eye, but water defined it. Waves alternately slapped aside cliffs or gently lipped fallen logs to shore; mist, rain, or snow filled the air more often than sunlight. Water, locked in glaciers and snow-cap, even set the distant peaks agleam by moon or star.

Today’s downpour had eased to the point where Mac, looking out her window, could see the toss of waves and the mauve-gray of cliffs, if not the trees above and beyond. She didn’t need to—those trees were the heritage of the man standing beside her. In a sense, Charles Mudge III was the Wilderness Trust.

In all the years they’d tussled, spat, and outright battled over scientific access to this Anthropogenic Perturbation Free Zone, she’d always respected that.
Now?
“They’ve promised me privacy here,” Mac said finally, turning to look at Mudge. “If that’s a lie, I’ve no way to know. I can only warn you.”

“The same ‘they’ who wouldn’t let me talk to you.”

Mac nodded.

The Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs. An office on each Human settlement, station or colony, two or three local staff. Census-takers. Bureaucrats who arranged travel visas and sent inoffensive messages of congratulations or condolences as necessary, keeping somewhat neglectful track of humanity’s widespread offspring. Mediators, when Human expectation collided with alien reality. There was a central office on Mars, ostensibly to be close to the transects anchored outside Venus orbit, but also because matters within Sol’s system, or on Earth herself, hadn’t been part of the Ministry’s jurisdiction.

Until aliens came to live and work here as well, and that jurisdiction began to blur. For who better to forestall any interspecies’ confusion, than the component of Human government accustomed to dealing with it daily?

Mac had been brought home on a Ministry ship. On the journey, as her arm had healed, as she’d grieved, as she’d answered their interminable questions and received few answers to her own, she’d made a pact with herself. She’d think the best of those who’d taken control of things, do her utmost to believe they meant her well and could do their jobs—at least until there was clear evidence to the contrary.

On those terms, Mac tolerated guards on her door and accepted ’Sephe as staff—assuming the woman’s work as a scientist measured up to Norcoast standards—even though that acceptance meant ignoring the other aspect of their new statistician.

Mudge’s complaint, however, was another matter.

He appeared uneasy. Perhaps he hadn’t believed her assurance of privacy. Mac wasn’t sure she believed it either. She watched Mudge pace around her office, pausing beside her rebuilt garden—presently receiving an overdose of chill mist which made the floor nearby somewhat treacherous. Its weather mirrored that of Field Station One: last to feel summer, first to freeze again. Of course, since the floor near the garden consisted of fist-sized hunks of gravel embedded as if the bottom of a river, walking with care was a given. Her staff had worked hard to restore what the Ro—and, to be honest, the Ministry’s investigators—had torn apart. The reconstruction had been a pleasant but unsettling surprise upon her return, Mac remembered. Unsettling, because she could look over there and believe nothing had changed.

Almost
. Mudge didn’t glance up at her collection of wooden salmon, swaying on their threads below the rain-opaqued curved ceiling. If he had, he would have seen that not all were carvings. Between the stylized Haida renderings, the realistic humps of pinks and the dramatic hooked jaws of coho and chum, hung slimmer, more nondescript fish, fish with hollow bodies filled with motion sensors and alarms.

It was likely Mudge also missed the significance of the reed curtains beside both doors into Mac’s office. At night, she pulled them across. Not for privacy: the walls themselves could be opaqued at will. No, like the false carvings, the reeds were hollow and contained metal chimes. When touched they made, as Tie bluntly put it, “enough noise to wake the dead.” Low-tech security, perhaps, but comforting nonetheless.

Everyone else might want a visit from the Ro.
Never again,
vowed Mac, with a restrained shudder.

Did her staff and friends consider her obsessed by her midnight visitor?
Maybe. For Mac’s part, she was appalled by how completely everyone else had accepted the Ministry’s version of events: that she and Emily had surprised vandals planning to sabotage the pods; that Emily had seen too much, and been taken to keep her silent, that Otto Rkeia, career thief and presumed ring-leader, had met his death by misadventure during that sabotage.

As if “death by misadventure” could somehow encompass being glued to an anchor of Pod Six, thirty meters below the surface of the Pacific
.

Not only had everyone at Base let Emily Mamani slip from their lives, they actually believed they themselves were safe. That anything was safe.

What was she thinking,
Mac chastised herself,
bringing Mudge here, hinting she’d reveal secrets others had died, were likely dying, to protect?
“A threat to the species . . . where on that scale . . .” She refused to remember the rest of that voice.

Heedless of her inner turmoil, her unwelcome visitor stopped to point at a shoulder-high folding screen of black lacquered wood, presently perch to three gray socks, a large lumpy brown sweater, and a pair of faded blue coveralls twin to those Mac wore. “Don’t they give you living quarters?”

Mac waved at the lab end of her office. “I like to stay with my work.” He gave the worktables loaded ceiling-high with boxes and storage bags a doubtful look. “Incoming postdocs,” she lied, unwilling to admit she’d had no students apply to work with her this season. Why would they? She’d abandoned Base last year, produced no results, attended no conferences, ignored messages, missed interviews.
Unreliable. Unproductive. Unworthy.
Mac was counting on the coming season and its results to set things right.

The boxes and bags were Emily’s. Her belongings kept being sent here, without warning, from wherever they were found. Thoroughly searched and documented before Mac saw them, with no explanation or advice on what to do with them; she let them pile up. Archaeologist’s tools and flamboyant jewelry from the dead home world of the Dhryn. Slashed silk and broken furniture from guest quarters on Base. Sleeping bag and tent from Field Station Six. A collection of erotic novels and exotic kitchen gear from the Sargasso Sea. Mail-order llama statues.

Flotsam from a woman’s life.
How far could you drift before being lost?
Mac wondered.

The Ro had taken part of Emily’s flesh and somehow traded it for no-space, so she could travel with them, talk to them.
How long could a body endure that connection? How long could a mind?

Well aware of that connection, the IU and the Ministry desperately wanted to find Emily Mamani and any like her, to reestablish communication with the Ro. The real reason for their attention to Base. To Mac.
Emily’s things?

More bait.