Survival (27 page)

Flash!

Even as Trojanowski drew and fired, Mac heard footsteps behind her and threw herself around to stop. Jabulani and Denise from coming out the door. Fortunately, they were so startled by the sight of Trojanowski and his weapon that they halted of their own accord, both shouting questions. “Stay there!” Mac ordered, whirling back to see what was happening.

“Did you—?” She shut her mouth on the words, seeing Trojanowski rush to lean over the rail.

“I don't know. It fell,” he added unnecessarily as she came up beside him and could see for herself the commotion below. “Or jumped.”

This side of the floating ring was being lifted and dropped with a smack by waves originating where the water was still churned white from an impact. Students and their supervisors were scrambling to keep equipment from bouncing into the ocean, yelling questions at one another. A couple jumped in, ruining whatever experiments were underway, but obviously concerned someone might be drowning.

Trojanowski's elbow bumped Mac's as he put his weapon away.

“Shouldn't we stop them?” Mac demanded, worrying about the would-be rescuers.

“They won't find it,” her companion predicted.

He was right.

10

 

 

 

T
HERE WERE clouds forming on the horizon. Mac hugged herself tightly and watched them blur the line where wave met sky in a spectrum of heaving gray and black. Where she stood, outside Pod Six, the mid-afternoon sun scoured to a hard-edged gleam every section of mem-wood walkway, every rail, every ripple of ocean surrounding them all.

It did nothing to expose an invisible foe.

“They worried they'd have to stop looking at dusk,” Trojanowski announced. “Then someone volunteered to rig lights.” He'd removed his coat and cravat sometime in the last hour, pressing the mem-fabric of his shirt sleeves to hold them above his elbows. Mac hadn't seen him put his hands into the water, but they dripped on the walkway as he approached her.

As “they” referred to a cobbled-together team of enthused students and supervisors using skims and whatever diving gear was at hand to search the water within and around the pod, Mac was less than impressed. “You told me yourself there's no point,” she protested, pressing her lips together. Finally: “I should stop this.”

“And how will you explain why?” he asked mildly, shaking droplets from his fingertips and squinting at the line of skims. “Too many heard something fall in the water. A stubborn bunch you have here.”

Enough was enough
. Mac took a deep breath, then said: “I won't bother with explanations. They can be as stubborn as they want at home, where I don't have to worry about them. I'm going to order Base evacuated.”

The look he shot her at this was anything but mild. “No. Under no circumstances are you to do that, Dr. Connor. That would be—”

“What? An act of treason against my species?” He might be taller by a head, but Mac had no trouble glaring at him. “I have no problem being bait for our intruder, Mr. Trojanowski, if that's what it takes. I draw the line at risking the people of this facility in any way.”

He met her glare with a resigned sigh. “I know. But—”

Just then, a skim swooped to a stop above the water in front of them, disgorging a pair of soaking wet and begoggled students who waved happily as they jumped onto the walkway. Between them they carried a seaweed-coated length of pipe, with links of chain dangling from each end, that they dropped at Mac's feet. “Look what we found, Mac!” one exclaimed with glee. “Part of the old goal post!” Without waiting for an answer, they dove back in their skim and headed for the others.

Mac nudged the pipe with the toe of her shoe. “Well, you've been missing a while,” she scolded, to keep her voice free of either laughter or sob. Then, to the silent man beside her: “These people have no idea what we're up against. Even if they did, they'd still try to help. We can't protect them here. You know that as well as I do.”

“Dr. Connor. Mac. Walk with me, please,” he said, a command more than invitation. “I've some things to tell you that shouldn't be overheard.”

“Is one going to be a damned good reason why I shouldn't send my people to safety—right now?”

“You'll have to judge that for yourself.”

Without another word, Trojanowski led Mac to the very end of the walkway, away from searchers and spectators, to where the mem-wood slats broadened into a platform that ramped down on either side to meet the now-empty slips of Norcoast's small skim and t-lev fleet. He stood with the sun and the end rail at his back.
To hide his expression or illuminate her own?

“Well, this should be private enough,” Mac commented, raising her voice to be heard above the slap of water and the raucous chatter of gulls roosting on the slips. She adjusted out of habit to the sway of the walkway as it rode the incoming swells, then tapped her foot smartly on the mem-wood. “Or is it? We've no way to know, do we?”

“No way to know,” he agreed, but didn't seem unduly concerned by this or the shifting surface underfoot. He rubbed his hands together as if to finish drying them, then spread them wide apart. “But this isn't the first time. It's been like chasing a ghost, Mac. No images on record. A few traces of slime that contain no genetic information or cells. No clues, beyond the type of encounter we've just had. We call them ‘Nulls,' for want of anything better.”

“So there have been other—encounters,” Mac said, finding his word choice unsettling.
What would they call murder? A meeting?
“Where? Was anyone else taken? Harmed? What—”

“Nothing as tangible as this, until now,” he answered, cutting her list short. “Nothing as bold. The Nulls themselves were only a name until you heard one. We've been able to spot their ship landings, some anyway—damaged vegetation and disturbed earth. If we're lucky, there's slime.”

Mac wondered how anyone could say that with a straight face, but didn't interrupt.

Trojanowski went on: “Neither the Ministry nor the IU is ready to make a direct connection between these beings and what's been happening along the Naralax Transect—the disappearances—”

“But you—you personally—think there is,” Mac stated, shading her eyes to make out more of his face.

His shoulders lifted and fell. “Anyone who goes to this much trouble to hide themselves has a reason. And there have been landing sites in systems along the Naralax, on worlds where and when such events have taken place.”

“ ‘Events.' ” Mac shook her head in disgust. “ ‘Missing person reports.' ‘Disappearances.' Why don't you say what really happened? The eradication of all life, of every living molecule, as if it had never existed—just like the worlds in the Chasm. A minor detail I had to learn from an alien! Why wasn't it in the report?”

“I'm sure the Ministry would have briefed you more completely had there seemed a need from the start.” Almost by rote.

“You mean if they'd taken Brymn seriously.”

“Yes, but it was more than that.” He shook his head. “The decision to keep a lid on this was made in order to prevent panic. We didn't want to alarm you or anyone else, unnecessarily.”

The wind, previously soft and steady from the west, chose that moment to send a spray-laden gust over the end of the walkway. Mac had already tucked the portion of her braid escaping its knot into her collar, but sufficient drops landed on her face and head to steal the sun's warmth. She licked salty lips. “I'll tell you what's alarming me, Mr. Trojanowski, the idea of my people being stalked by these creatures. I think that's more than enough reason to close this facility immediately and send everyone home.”

A sliver of steel entered his voice. “And I say that would be premature. They've only shown interest in you, Dr. Mamani, and possibly Brymn. There's every indication they've attempted to prevent inadvertent contact with anyone else. The power failures, the late night intrusions. If we change the routine at this facility, we might spook them into disappearing for good—or into more direct action.”

“Not good enough,” Mac snapped. “A pile of conjecture that does nothing but serve your interest in finding these Nulls.”

“They are after you,” he repeated, as if she hadn't spoken. “The obvious conclusion is that, despite all our security, somehow they've found out you and Brymn are looking into the—eradications. But why Emily? You know something, don't you?” His voice softened. “I've seen it in your eyes, Mac. You're blaming yourself. Why?”

Mac walked around Trojanowski so he had to turn to the sun in order to keep her in view. As if sensing what she wanted, he took off his glasses, put them in a pocket, and waited, a patient, if determined, compassion on his face.
Each time they had stood like this, face-to-face,
Mac realized with a small shock,
something fundamental between them had changed.
Was it only the circumstances? Was it him?

This time, it felt natural to say to him what she could hardly bear to think. “Emily was trying to tell me something, the last—the last time I saw her. She wasn't angry at me. I know it sounded like it, when we were together on the stairs, but she wasn't. She said I needed to understand that we—she meant Humans—weren't the only people investigating the disappearances. She said we had our parts to play, but they were small and we'd be back to normal soon. She said all this as if to reassure me.” Mac paused to firm up her voice. “But I think it was to reassure herself.” Tears spilled over her eyelids; she let them fall. “She was afraid, Nik. I didn't see it until too late.”

“What was she afraid of?”

“Something that hadn't happened yet. Something—maybe something she was going to do. Emily asked me to promise to forgive her, but wouldn't tell me why.”

Nikolai Trojanowski put his hands on either side of her face, then brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, once, ever so lightly, to wipe away her tears. “Did you promise?” he asked gently.

“I didn't need to promise that,” Mac sniffed. “I told her friends always forgive friends. What could she have meant? What was she talking about?”

“I don't know. To figure this out, I need you to tell me everything you can, Mac.” Nik lowered his hands. “It's your choice.”

A gull complained about ravens. A fish jumped in the distance, visiting an alien realm. Mac weighed promise against reality, and knew there was no choice left.

“I understand. Brymn. He called me his
lamisah,
” she told him. “Do you know the word? He said it meant that we were allies.”

“I haven't heard it before. But please. Go on.”

“Emily was his
lamisah,
too.” Mac turned and gripped the rail in both hands, staring out at the simplicity of the inlet's life, and then told Nikolai Trojanowski everything she knew, from sharing the Ministry's message with Emily, to Brymn's desire to speak to her privately and what he'd said, ending with the meeting between the three of them in her office. The only time she sensed a reaction from the silent form beside her was his stiffening when she mentioned the figure watching the three of them from the terrace.

“Emily thought it was you,” Mac told him.

“Hardly. I was waiting for ghosts on the mountain.”

Mac's hands tightened on the rail until she felt twinges of pain up both wrists. “You should have been here protecting us! Protecting Emily!” The fury of her own sudden outburst shocked her. She put one hand over her mouth, then drew it down slowly. “It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known. I'm sorry. . . .”

“Don't be. You aren't wrong, Mac.” His tone brought her eyes around to look at him. A muscle jumped along his jaw and his mouth was a thin, stark line. “I wish I'd been here,” he said grimly. “I wish I hadn't completely underestimated Brymn and the situation I placed you in. I thought he was a joke. I thought having to come here with him was a waste of my time and my superiors were fools to let him convince them otherwise. Oh, I did all the right prep—made all the right motions. Backgrounds on you and your people. Checked, what I could, on the Dhryn.” Twin spots of color appeared on his cheeks and his voice lowered. “Getting that call to watch for a Null ship felt like a reprieve—until I found out what had happened while I was gone. It's I who owe you an apology, Mackenzie Connor. As if words matter now.”

Emily assessed people in an instant and was rarely wrong, an ability Mac now envied. Her own way was to avoid such judgments, to wait and watch while time spent working together revealed the quality of a person, or its lack.
A luxury she no longer had
. There was only the seeming sincerity of this man's voice and expression, his actions over the past two and a half days, and a supposedly counterfeit-proof message, carefully transferred to her pant pocket because nowhere in her home was safe.