Survival (30 page)

Brymn's eyes followed hers. Mac felt the floor vibrate. He must have made one of his low frequency sounds. “What has happened to your room . . . ?” his voice rumbled into silence as he looked up at the ceiling and saw the remnants of the adhesive webbing overhead. “Aieeee!” His shriek rattled everything loose in the room. “The Ro are here! We must run for our lives!” Even as he attempted to stand, he lapsed from English to what sounded to Mac like more of the Dhryn's own language, only so rapid that none of the words were remotely familiar.

They were going to get some answers at last.
Satisfied, Mac leaned against the wall that had once held a set of shelves, the shelves in turn once holding a shell collection now shattered at her feet, and waited with some interest to see how Nikolai Trojanowski handled a bear-sized case of alien hysterics.

- Portent -

A
STORM WITHOUT cloud brought the rain, sudden and hard. Its drops pockmarked the smooth rise of swells bringing the new tide, drops that tinted the ocean a deeper green.

Thrice daily, the tide brought life to life. Its return woke those who bided their time within airtight casings or hidden in moist crevices, so they might feast on the flood of organics. It drew to the shallows those from the depths who would, in turn, feed on the feasters. Yet they would leave their eggs behind in the protected pools, to begin a new cycle of life that would wash out with another tide.

Until this tide came in, storm-wracked and bringing only death.

First to succumb were those who opened their casings and extended fragile arms in anticipation, those arms dissolving with the ocean's tainted kiss.

Next were those who had risen in their multitudes to feed and breed in the shallows. Even as they tasted the layer of death above and would have fled, their flesh rotted from their bones, their bones washing into the tide.

The tide paused at its zenith, having filled the pools with quiet green.

Only those waiting onshore for the tide's departure were spared. They peered, bright-eyed and bold, from their holes in the rock face above. Some leaned farther out, into the daylight, tiny feet holding firm to the edge of the stone.

Shadows cut the sun.

In reflex, those leaning winked inside their shelters. Those who felt safe kept watch, chittering among themselves, then grew utterly quiet as the shadows surrounded what had been a tidal pool.

And began to drink.

11

 

 

 

I
N THE END, it was the ruined mattress, not any particular heroics from Nik, that saved the day.

As Brymn prepared to run for his life, the man calmly reached down and pulled one end of the mattress.
Hard
. The mattress, already shredded, gave way entirely—taking one of the Dhryn's pillarlike feet with it. The alien toppled on his side like a crab tossed by a gull.

Before he could wriggle himself up again, Mac cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed over his piteous—and loud—exclamations: “It was only a recording! You're safe. Brymn! Calm—” She found herself yelling into a quiet room and shut up.

Mac walked to where the Dhryn could see her. His small mouth was working, as if he couldn't help trying to speak. The vivid blue membrane flickered across his yellow-irised eyes with almost strobelike speed. She found it disconcerting and was glad when Nik joined her, going to one knee so he was face-to-face with the alien. “It's been two days since you were attacked,” he informed Brymn, talking slowly and distinctly. “Do you require any care, Honorable Delegate?”

The flickering slowed. “Mackenzie . . . Winifred . . . Elizabeth . . . Wright . . . Connor . . . ?” the words came out punctuated by faint gasps. His eyes seemed to be searching for her without success; she wondered if the moving eyelids impaired his sight. “Mac?”

“I'm here,” Mac assured him.
How remarkably tempting,
she thought,
to take his question for a Humanlike concern.

Nik leaned forward, in range of those still-restless arms. Without the suit coat to disguise it, he was built like a swimmer, with that distinctively rounded cap of muscle on each shoulder and strong curves along both back and upper chest. Emily would approve, Mac knew. For a Human, his was not a small or insignificant form, yet he was dwarfed by the more massive Dhryn.

Mac restrained the urge to pull Nik back a safe distance.
Trained spy or whatever,
she told herself inanely,
while poor Brymn was, after all, an archaeologist.

A very large, very anxious archaeologist. The eyelids slowed to a mere nervous-looking twitch. “Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski,” Brymn said earnestly, his voice softer but prone to tremble. “We are not safe here. None of us. The Ro . . .” The violent shudder that accompanied the word seemed a reflex. “They are dangerous, evil creatures.”

“Don't worry. These rooms were swept and sealed, with guards and a repeller field at every access.”

He could have told
her
that,
Mac grumbled to herself, feeling a knot of tension easing between her shoulders she hadn't noticed until now.

“Help me sit up, please.”

It took both of them to steady the Dhryn as he rose, then settled back down more comfortably, two hands searching for and finding a bare patch of floor on which to balance his body. Touching his torso and arm was like taking his hand, Mac found. The skin was like sun-warmed rubber, dry and with an underlying musculature. This close, he had a delicate, floral scent. Mac recognized it. Her bottle of lily of the valley must have been a casualty of the attack.

“What happened?” she blurted. “After you left my office, I mean. And why did you leave?” she added, earning a slight frown from Nik, doubtless about to conduct his own, more professional interrogation.

Brymn folded his arms in an intricate pattern. Sitting, his face wasn't much higher than Mac's own. Right now, she couldn't read any expression on it that made sense to her. At least his eyelids had stopped flashing that blue blankness across his eyes. “I left because you did, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

“I did?” Mac considered this and felt herself blush. “Well, yes, I suppose we did. But we were only on the terrace for a moment—you thought we'd left you?”

“I did not think you had left. You did leave. Was I not to assume this meant our meeting had ended?”

Nik spoke before Mac could attempt an explanation. “Where did you go after you left, Brymn?”

“Here. I had a great deal of reading to do. The opportunity to access—” his voice faded, then strengthened, “—my apologies for my condition. I will require a few more hours to recuperate fully.” A look of surprise. “You must have disturbed my
hathis,
healing sleep.”

“Sorry,” Nik said tersely. “As you were saying?”

“Ah. I was saying, I came here to read the Human journals I'd requested. When attempting to reconstruct the development of theories, I prefer to study the research in the original language of the author.”

Implying he read more than English and Instella,
Mac decided. Her species might appear—and act—united to those from other worlds, but there had never been a homogenization of cultures or tongues at dirt level. Part stubborn habit and part a celebration of distinctiveness. She'd read somewhere that humanity's extra-Sol settlements were pretty much the same: Instella with company and tradition at home.

The biologist in her approved. Just as a population's survival improved with a variety of inheritable traits, Mac suspected a civilization's ability to cope with change was enhanced by having a choice of approach. She'd lost the debate to Emily when she'd admitted to not comparing data on humanity with that of other sentient species. As usual, her friend had scoffed at what she called Mac's parochial attitude. There was more to the universe than opposable thumbs and nose hair, she'd insist.

Mac snapped her attention back to the moment. Nik had continued his questioning. “What happened after you arrived in these rooms?”

“I do not wish to think of it.” This with a tone of complete finality.

Nik sent her a warning look before Mac could say a word, then crossed his arms over his chest.
Meaningful mimicry of the Dhryn or thoughtless gesture?
Mac felt like tossing dice.

“We respect your wish, Honorable Delegate,” the man told the Dhryn.

Brymn blinked and Mac thought he looked startled.
So was she.
She narrowed her eyes and studied Nik. He looked solemn, almost grave, but she thought there was a bit of smugness in his expression as well.

“Thank you,” the Dhryn boomed, his voice closer to normal. “I—”

“It is, however,” Nik interrupted without missing a beat, “my duty to inform you that your visitor's visa has been revoked—effective immediately. You will be escorted from Earth and Sol System within the hour.”

“You can't do that. Mac?”

Mac nodded. “He can do that,” she told the shocked alien.

Rather than distress, Brymn's face assumed a look of great dignity. He unfolded four arms and spread them widely. “You see, Mac? I told you your government considered my mission of great importance. They have assigned an
erumisah
—a decision maker of power—as my companion and guide.” He proffered Nik one of his rising bows. “I am most gratified.”

Mac wasn't surprised to see Nik take this in stride.
He must be used to dealing with cultures as varied as their biologies.
“Then you will understand, Honorable Delegate,” he said, “why I cannot permit you to remain here, potentially drawing more dangerous attention from these ‘Ro,' unless you are willing to provide whatever information you can to help us.”

The arms wrapped back around the torso and Brymn looked at her, then at Nik, then at her again. “It is not permitted to speak of them,” he began. Mac felt the vibration through the floor as he uttered something more in the infrasound and held up her hand to silence the Dhryn.

“We can't hear that,” she advised him, then remembered what Brymn had told her about the lack of Dhryn biologists. “Our ears are not adapted to respond to the same range of sound frequencies as yours, Brymn.”

He looked startled and glanced at Nikolai as if seeking confirmation. The man nodded. “We feel vibrations that tell us you are making certain sounds, but not what you are saying. If we need to hear them to understand you, Honorable Delegate, we'll have to bring in the appropriate audio equipment.”

“This is fascinating. Let us find out—” The Dhryn uttered a series of hoots, each lower in pitch than the preceding. He hit some lovely bass notes Mac was reasonably sure no Human voice could reach unassisted, then went deeper still. Suddenly, though his mouth appeared to be making a sound, she couldn't hear it. Mac raised her hand at the same instant Nik lifted his. Brymn closed his mouth, his eyes wide with what appeared to be astonishment. “You're deaf!” he exclaimed.

Mac dredged up memories of choral practice, took a deep breath, and did her best to nail a high C. From Nik's pained expression, she mangled it nicely, but Brymn's brow ridges wrinkled at the edges. “And I must also be deaf,” he admitted. “This is most—awkward. You have never heard my full voice. Or the foul tongue of the Ro. Then how—?”

She understood. “For the recording you heard, we recreated the sounds I remembered hearing,” Mac explained, “then added a very low frequency pulse.”

Another shudder ran through his arms. “It was realistic enough. But do not worry about our conversations, my
lamisah
. From this moment, I speak to you as if you were an
oomling
. It isn't respectful, but you need not worry about being deaf.”