She nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes. I’m sorry. Vessel. Is that what I should call you?”
“It is what I am.”
“You want to know what happened since you were sent. There’s no easy way to say it. Other Progenitors have destroyed inhabited worlds, taken all life from them.”
The Dhryn frowned. “This cannot be.”
“It is,” Mac said earnestly. “You must believe me. Millions—billions of not-Dhryn have died already.”
He reared up, giving her a suspicious look. “Why would we do such a thing?” Then, more kindly: “I see that you are confused,
Lamisah
. The not-Dhryn kill one another. Dhryn do not take life.”
Confused covered it from all sides,
she thought and turned to Nik. “He doesn’t believe me, that other Dhryn have been attacking worlds. I’m trying to explain, but—”
His eyes were guarded as he looked to the Dhryn and back to her. “How specific do you want to be?”
“There’s no time to waste.”
“In that case—here.” Nik pulled out his imp and activated its screen, setting a display to hover at eye level in front of the Dhryn.
Ships appearing at a transect. A confusion of attackers and defenders. Mac could barely make out which was which, except that the Dhryn seemed intent above all on reaching the planet, squandering tactical advantage in order to drop their smaller ships—that appalling number of smaller ships—ships that produced a green rain—
Mac wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t. The images were fragmented, nightmarish. Most were brief, as if the ships doing the observing were under assault themselves.
“Aiieeeeee!” The Vessel’s cry bounced around the room. He surged to his feet, backing away from the images, hands out as if to block them. “Aieeeeeee!”
Turning off his screen, Nik looked at Mac. “We can’t assume it’s shock—it could be his reaction to the Dhryn ships being destroyed.”
She scowled back. “I know Her—him—better than that.”
“Careful, Mac.”
Rather than argue, Mac shrugged and switched back to the
oomling
tongue. “This is what has happened. It’s still happening, in other systems. That’s why we’re all here, Vessel. Why you’re here. To try and stop more loss of life.”
“This not the Way.” With an undertone of despair. “I don’t understand.”
She’d been afraid of that
. “Neither do we,” Mac admitted. “What should be the Way?”
“The Way?” A calmer, but puzzled look. “All that is Dhryn answers the Call. Then the Great Journey takes us Home. All that is Dhryn must move.”
“Why?” Mac held her breath. “Why do you move now?”
“I do not,” the Dhryn answered.
Was he being literal?
Mac worried. Then: “I believe—I hope—that others—do not. We must resist this Call if we are to survive.”
“What Call?” Without thought, Mac reached for Nik’s hand and found it. He didn’t interrupt or ask why. “Whose?”
The question sent the Dhryn rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around his middle. Blue kept flowing from the gashes, and Mac worried how much he could spare. “We do not know,” he said finally. “The oldest stories passed from Progenitor to Progenitor tell of a time when the Call came over generations of
oomlings,
that new Dhryn were born readied for it; able to grow stronger, larger in preparation. The urge to move would then spread through a lineage like breathing into a body. Inevitable, natural. The Great Journey would spend all but the Progenitors, who would await the future, remembering the Way home again. So the stories say.”
“That’s not what’s happening now.”
“No,
Lamisah
. I fear what is happening now is not only the deaths of others, but of all that is Dhryn.”
“Is this why you told me to run?” Mac remembered that moment when she and Brymn had balanced on the palm of the Progenitor and heard Her horrified warning. “You said my species should run before the gates between worlds closed again.”
“As we ran to Haven,” the Vessel said, a reverberation in the floor attesting to some emotion. “Were it not for the great buried ships that awaited us, to shelter us from the rain, to feed us, all that is Dhryn would have perished as the rest.”
The
rest
? Hundreds of other species. Entire worlds, scoured to dust.
Mac swallowed. Suddenly, their differences overwhelmed her, the blue skin, the bony ridged face, the arms, maimed and moving restlessly. Even the smell. If it hadn’t been for the solid, so-Human, presence at her side, she might not have dared go on: “You mean the other species in the Chasm. Did the Dhryn consume them, too?”
“Dhryn do not consume other life. It is not the Way.”
Around to that again
. Mac frowned. It wasn’t that the Dhryn defined life as only including themselves. Brymn Las had certainly understood there were other living things, that other worlds than Haven were homes.
In the pause, the grip on her hand tightened a fraction. “Mac.”
She glanced sideways at him. “It’s still complicated.”
“That was Dhryn, Mac.”
Blushing, she took a moment to be sure what she was about to speak. “Sorry, Nik,” in English. “It’s still complicated.”
“I understand that. But we need something tangible, a place to start. Ask if this Dhryn, the Vessel, can help us communicate with others. Arrange negotiations.”
Doubtful, Mac nodded. “Vessel,” she began, “we’d like to speak to the other Dhryn—”
“How?”
“That’s what we’d like you to tell us.”
A lift and fall of six arms. “Within a lineage, only
erumisah
may speak to their Progenitor without invitation. You have not yet committed sufficient
grathnu
to be so elevated, my
lamisah
. And only a Vessel may approach another Progenitor.”
Mac repeated this, in English, to Nik. He nodded thoughtfully. “What about the colonial Dhryn, those who lived away from Haven and the Progenitors? They were accustomed to com systems—many traded freely within the systems of other IU species.”
She hurried to translate. The Vessel gave a soft sigh. “The great ships launched without their return. They have no Progenitors to guide them. They are lost, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.”
“Lost as in dead—or lost as in they’ve become a separate faction?” Nik responded when he heard this.
“Do you want me to ask?” Mac said, rubbing her temple.
He gave her a worried look. “English.”
It had sounded right.
“It’s getting harder to keep it all straight,” she confessed in that tongue, ashamed.
“You’re doing fine, Mac. You aren’t trained for this.” Nik shook his head. “I’d like to give you a break, but . . .”
“I know.” Mac stretched her arms and spine. “I’m okay. Do you want the question about factions?”
“No. We’ll deal with that later. It’s the Progenitor ships we need to stop. Try and get a time frame. How long do we have between attacks?”
Good question
. Mac nodded. “Vessel—” she paused to be sure what language her tongue was shaping.
“The great ships were not prepared for the Great Journey,” the Dhryn answered—too soon, Mac realized.
Nik didn’t miss a thing; he wouldn’t miss this
. Sure enough, he was sitting straighter, starting to frown.
Damn
.
This time, she grabbed for his hand deliberately. “I know what I’m doing,” she insisted, trying to convey the same message through look, words, and touch.
Trust me. Be patient.
His fingers squeezed hers again, twice, before letting go. She’d have been more relieved if his face hadn’t worn its patented “spy on the prowl” expression.
Later would be soon enough
. Mac turned to the Vessel. “What does that mean—the ships weren’t prepared?”
“Before my time, we broke with the tradition of keeping each ship ready to depart. We believed it a meaningless duplication to have food production in every ship, when there were new, more modern facilities above ground. So most was centralized in a few key locations. If the Progenitor is not producing
oomlings,
and adults fast, it is possible to go for a considerable time without a new source. But . . . that which is Dhryn must not starve.”
“Nik,” Mac translated quickly, her mouth dry, “the Dhryn can’t grow their food, not on every ship. They’ll need an outside source. Given their numbers—probably often.”
His lips pressed into a grim line. “Noted. How many per ship? Weaponry? Insystem speed? We need details—as much as you can get.”
Before the Vessel could open his mouth again—and confirm Nik’s growing suspicions, Mac said quickly: “Don’t answer his questions. Not yet. We need to talk about the Call, first. Was it the Ro?”
“The Ro? The Ro are the Enemy, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.” A humoring tone, as if she were young and lost. “They do not Call the Dhryn. They steal and terrorize our
oomlings
. They wish us gone. As, I fear, do all not-Dhryn. Including this one.” An arm ending in a stump pointed at Nik.
“What we wish is not to be food for Dhryn,” Mac snapped back.
“I do not consume not-Dhryn,” the Vessel replied. “Others do not.”
“You saw for yourself. Dhryn are doing this.”
“Aiieeeee! Yes, but I do not understand.” More rocking. “Do not speak of it.”
“For now. The
oomlings,
” Mac circled back. “Why would the Ro go to such effort to steal them? If they wanted to harm you, they could have destroyed Haven any time they wished.”
“To threaten the
oomlings
is to threaten all that is Dhryn.” The tone flat and with a hint of threat itself.
Nik heard it and reacted. “What’s wrong, Mac?”
“Nothing,” she snapped, then waved an apology. To the Vessel: “Why do some Dhryn consume other species and other Dhryn do not?”
“I do not know. In the Great Journey, all that is Dhryn must follow the Taste.”
“Scouts,” Mac crowed triumphantly. “I was right! The disappearances earlier—they were caused by Dhryn scouts, weren’t they? They were collecting the Taste of what was on various worlds, bringing it back to the Progenitors. Those that digest and feed—” somehow, she didn’t shudder.
“Impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“The mouths and hands of the Dhryn must stay with the Progenitor. They do not exist elsewhere. They have no purpose elsewhere.”
“Then how do you find the Taste to follow?” Mac asked, thinking it a reasonable question.
The Dhryn’s mouth turned downward at the edges.
Disapproval
. “The Taste is not found. It is that which the Progenitor requires on the Great Journey. All that is Dhryn then follows the Taste.”
Mac sighed. Somewhere, she was convinced, buried in the mythic, convoluted language, there had to be a greater truth than she was hearing, some clue. “Vessel, I—”
She was interrupted by Nik, as he rose to his feet. “We need to talk. Now.” He stood, looking down at her.
“I’m going to consult with my companion,” Mac told the Dhryn as she stood, too. “Don’t react to what we say to one another. It is important.”
“As you wish,
Lamisah
.”
Nik led her a few steps from the Dhryn, but didn’t leave the cell, as she’d expected. “What’s going on, Mac?” he demanded in a low, urgent voice.
“We’re a little stuck on aspects that seemed to be fixed in Dhryn myth. I’m getting stuck,” Mac corrected. “Maybe you can help me—”
“Forget that. What did he say about weapons, deployments, their ships?”
“The Vessel?” Flustered, Mac blurted: “He doesn’t know things like that. I’m trying to find out what’s controlling the Dhryn. Where they go. Why—”
“You didn’t ask, did you?” Nik didn’t let her finish, a new edge to every word. “Mac, that information’s crucial. There are worlds filled with beings needing help now. All the rest—the whys, the past—we don’t have time for your curiosity!” He took a deep breath, as if tamping down his temper. “From now on, I want you to translate for me. Word for word. Nothing more.”
It hurt, seeing his anger, knowing she was the cause.
Couldn’t be allowed to matter, Em
.
“I can’t do that,” Mac told him levelly. “You aren’t asking the right questions.”
His eyes, now stone-cold, flicked up to the vidbots and down again.
As if she’d forget their audience
. “You study salmon, Dr. Connor. I’d like to hear how that makes you an expert in the gathering of strategic information.”
“What strategic information?” she fumed, losing her own temper. “The Dhryn are being led around the universe like a hungry bear following a bait bucket. What would you ask the bear, Nik? How long his claws are? How sharp his teeth? His ultimate intentions toward fish heads?”
Mac watched as it hit him, gave the tiniest possible nod as Nik’s eyes widened, felt a dizzying wave of relief when he didn’t say it out loud, as he realized the consequences if the Ro could somehow hear.
He sees the real question,
she thought triumphantly.
Who’s carrying the bait?
Then his eyes narrowed again. “It doesn’t matter what theories you’re investigating. We need that information. Either you ask what I want you to, now, or we’ll find another way.” From his grim expression, she knew exactly what he meant.
He’d tell others the Vessel understood Instella.
“You can’t!” Mac gasped. “Not now. I’m close. I know I am.”
“Close to what? You can’t make decisions for the IU, Mac.” Trying another tactic, Nik put his hands on her shoulders, bent to look into her eyes. Quietly: “There’ll be time later for your questions, Mac. Please.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a tactic all understood.
A bellow rattled the metal stool. “Release my
lamisah!
” The Dhryn rushed toward them, his head lowered in threat, three hands rising as if to reach for Nik.
Everything happened so fast Mac was never sure of the order. Nik shoved her aside, but she managed to twist from that force, using its momentum to half fall toward the angry alien. Nik was shouting something she didn’t hear—likely frustrated and directed at her—but Mac was intent on only one thing.