Migration (68 page)

“I have seen no awareness of—” Mac was forced to use the Instella words “medicine or biology” before continuing: “—among Dhryn. Brymn Las told me these subjects were forbidden. ‘We do not think on it.’ ”

“Ah.” The hint of a smile on those burgundy-tinged lips. “And why should Dhryn waste a moment’s breath puzzling at that which is incarnate in every Progenitor? We are the study of life,
Lamisah
. The workings of living things, Dhryn or not, are our passion. Like yours! This is why I know,” the smile disappeared, “ that Emily Mamani Sarmiento must be in the care of those with such knowledge or she will end.”

Mac didn’t argue further. She turned to Nik, who’d stayed close behind her. “The Ro can still harm Emily,” she told him. “The Vessel—I don’t know how he knows, but he says she could need medical assistance at any minute. Please, Nik.”

He gave her a dismayed look but nodded. “We can’t risk moving her until we have another shielded location. I’ll get someone on it, Mac, but you need to work on the problem at hand. The ships.”

“I know.” Mac took a deep breath, feeling a rush of energy that had more to do with the Fastfix taking hold than any remaining adrenaline in her system. As she did, she checked who else had come into the room with her.

Nik, of course. ’Sephe and Sing-li, now standing to either side of the door. The rest must have stayed outside to loom appropriately.

Under the circumstances, Mac highly approved.

One and Cinder stood on the other side of the cell, as if awaiting instructions. The Trisulian seemed calm enough, although one eyestalk was definitely bent in Nik’s direction.
Still angry or wanting to apologize?
For all Mac knew of the species, it could have been neither.

Last and not least at all, the four who had come in that first time: Anchen, Brend Hollans, Genny P’tool, and the still-silent Imrya with her recording pad.

“What ships?” the Vessel echoed, in Dhryn.

They could yell at her later,
Mac decided. She knew her strengths. Negotiation and diplomacy weren’t among them.

She opened the door and walked into the cell. The Dhryn met her in the middle. “What ships?” he said again, almost impatiently. “What’s happening, Mac?”

“How do you feel about crowds?” she asked, then patted the Dhryn’s shoulder. “Dumb question.”

“Indeed,” the Vessel replied. “Even the presence of not-Dhryn is better than being alone.”

“That’s good. Because you’re going to be meeting quite a few shortly. And you must speak to them so they can understand you. Their language. Please.”

Real alarm tightened the muscle beneath Mac’s fingers. “You said they would take you away from me,
Lamisah
!”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “That may happen. If it does, I want you to trust those you see here, in this room. And anyone Nik—Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski—brings to you. Will you do this for me? It is,” she added sincerely, “what you need to do for all that which is Dhryn.”

An arm draped itself heavily and awkwardly over her shoulders. “You are also that which is Dhryn. I will not permit you to come to harm,
Lamisah
.”

Despite their audience, in this room, beyond it, despite the contradiction between fear of this species and memories of friendship, Mac let her forehead rest against the Dhryn’s cheekbone, managed to stretch her arms as far around his body as she could. The alien stood perfectly still. Brymn had done the same for her. Their species might not share the use of physical contact for comfort; both shared the need.

Mac stepped free, giving the Vessel a final pat, and swallowed to moisten her throat. “Nik?” she called.

He joined her in the cell. Hollans looked as though he wanted to say something. Mac shook her head once, receiving a tight-lipped nod in return.

Nothing like a demonstration,
she decided. “Nik, the Vessel would like to know what ships you were talking about. Tell him.”

The understandable outbursts from those outside the cell didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered,
thought Mac, except the instant comprehension in his eyes, the determination that replaced it. “Twenty-three Dhryn ships—Progenitor Ships—have entered this solar system,” Nik said, moving to stand where he could look straight into the Vessel’s golden eyes.

A long silence, then: “Why have they come?” Instella, clear and unaccented, yet with an undertone that rattled the furnishings.

“A signal—a call—has drawn them from the Great Journey,” said Mac, careful not to mention the Ro. “We’ve stopped it and they’ve stopped. But they haven’t left.”

Nik continued at her look. “We’ve tried to communicate with the ships, but there’s been no response.”

“Because you are not-Dhryn,” the Vessel explained, as if this should be obvious.

The Ministry’s top alien liaison merely nodded. “That’s why we need your help—to open negotiations with them.”

“Negotiate what?” It seemed honest puzzlement. “The Great Journey has begun. That which is Dhryn will not be distracted by other concerns.”

Hollans had come close to the bars. “You’re waging war for the Ro, aren’t you?”

Mac winced.
That wasn’t going to go over well.

Sure enough, the Vessel immediately wrapped his arms around himself in that complex, defensive positioning. “Who is that being?” in Dhryn, flat and angry.

“
Erumisah
for Humans,” Mac said in the same tongue, giving Hollans a warning glare. In Instella,
hopefully,
she continued: “Vessel, that which is Dhryn shouldn’t be here. We,” she put her hand on her chest, “—I—don’t want to be food for Dhryn.”

A shocked “o” of his mouth, but he replied in the same language. “Is that why you think they have come? To consume your world as others were consumed? Impossible!”

“The dead planets of the Chasm. You—your Progenitor—spoke to me of remembrance. Of regret. Do you want that legacy again?”

“I do not speak of it.”

“You must!” A touch on her sleeve stopped her from more.

Nik’s eyes were gleaming behind his glasses. “Vessel. What could turn that which is Dhryn from one path to another?”

She knew she’d been right to have him do this,
Mac thought, relieved.

The Dhryn’s torso tilted up slightly.
Threat,
she judged it,
but not at them
.

“A risk to the Progenitor.”

Mac looked at Nik in dismay.
If Earth’s defenders, nose-to-nose with the Dhryn ships, weren’t considered such a risk, what would be?

He didn’t seem flustered.
Or didn’t show it,
she thought enviously. “How would such a risk be discovered by the Dhryn?”

“The Progenitor would reveal it.”

Around again,
she thought, frustrated, but kept silent.

“You are a Vessel,” Nik said calmly. “You can speak to other Progenitors—tell them this world is dangerous, that they should avoid it.”

A rapid series of blinks, like blue shutters covering those huge eyes. Then: “This world is not dangerous to a Progenitor,” the Dhryn said in a reasoning tone. “You two are my
lamisah
. The rest,” a gesture to the silent group outside the cell, “I am to trust.”

What had she thought about rocks and hard places?
Without thinking, Mac breathed: “Let me try again.”

Nik studied her face, then nodded. “Go.”

Mac sat cross-legged on the floor. To keep his eyes on her, the Vessel had to relax and lower his head. “Things are not as they should be, Vessel,” she said carefully. “That which is Dhryn has been shown a wrong path. A path that risks all Progenitors. I believe this.”

“I do not wish to speak of—”

“Stop!” Mac said sharply, looking up at the larger being. “You were sent to talk to me.”

Miserable, with yellow liquid oozing from one nostril. Tears. “Yes,
Lamisah
.”

“Explain to me. How does a Progenitor reveal a risk to her Dhryn?”

His mouth closed tight. Mac was about to ask again when she felt the floor beneath her start to vibrate. The reverberations traveled up her spine, jarring her teeth. “Like that,” she said with satisfaction.
Though at a much greater intensity, given the size of a real Progenitor.
It would be like an earthquake.

She’d felt it on Haven, before the planet split to release the ships, the Progenitors using their own bodies to warn their people. A warning that traveled through the ground and air, over vast distance, unstoppable.

A warning that this time might save more than Dhryn
.

There was something about watching capable people getting things done,
Mac decided happily,
that satisfied the soul
.

Either that, or she was experiencing Fastfix euphoria.

The distinction wasn’t important. She stayed where Nik had essentially parked her, near Emily’s bed, while he and others swarmed about to make and send a recording of what had been dubbed the Progenitor’s alarm cry.
Which was more an alarm
throb, Mac corrected, not that the name mattered.

They’d circumvented the need to bring in additional equipment—or move the Dhryn—by simply sliding aside a good portion of the ceiling. It also removed a good portion of the Dhryn shielding, exposing them all to the Ro, but Mac doubted the secretive beings would bother entering a room packed to the rafters.

Not to mention the presence of armored beings of every sort, intent on anything that wasn’t part of capable persons getting things done.

“You look pleased,
Lamisah
.”

Mac glanced through the bars at the Dhryn. “I do?” She considered the idea. “Relief,” she said finally.

After all. Others knew. Others were taking action. She wasn’t waiting to hear what was happening—she was in the midst of it all.

Okay, maybe that last wasn’t such a great thing
. Mac looked down at Emily. Even drugged unconscious, a state Anchen recommended for now, her face wasn’t relaxed. Muscles spasmed in seemingly random order. Her arms shifted as much as the cover allowed. Mac hadn’t guessed the bed could be adjusted into a restraint. It put a new light on climbing into her own later.

She watched the lift they’d slung from the other side bring down its next load. The Vessel watched as well. He’d stayed as close to her as possible but didn’t seem upset.

Which made sense. They were proposing to warn the Dhryn, not harm them.

A tactic that didn’t satisfy everyone.
Mac narrowed her eyes. The Imrya had spent most of her time with Cinder in the last half an hour, a conversation whose topic she could guess well enough.

“Let it go, Mac,” easy and quiet.

She glowered at Nik. “Have you talked to her yet?”

His laugh wasn’t amused. “In all this? We’ll sit down over some beers when things calm down. Cinder and I—we’ve enough history to get past a difference of opinion.”

“So you don’t think the Dhryn should be exterminated as soon as possible?”

The Vessel’s only protest was a faint distressed sound.

“Gods, Mac,” Nik shook his head at her. “Do you know any direction besides straight ahead?”

She was unrepentant. “Not when I know where I’m going. Nik—we need to—”

One came up to them. “We’re ready to test the simulation, Mr. Trojanowski, Dr. Connor.” A polite pause as he sorted out protocol. “Honorable Vessel.”

“Go ahead.”

The lights dimmed to request silence. The techs inhabiting the jumble of equipment now along the far wall gave a signal. Instantly, the walls and floor began to shake. Objects not secured fell and rolled.

While the Dhryn stood and ran as hard as he could in the opposite direction.

As that was the direction of the descending lift, the massive alien managed to knock most of the gear from it to the floor, sending himself rebounding to lie on his back.

Someone thought of shutting off the simulation.

“Well,” said Mac brightly as the Dhryn picked himself up, apparently no worse for wear, “that worked.”