Survival (47 page)

Much later, Mac dropped into the most comfortable of her chairs and looked at Brymn. “Well, that was fun.”

“Sarcasm or truth?”

She put her feet up on another chair and grinned. “A bit of both.” The two scientists had been charmingly fascinated by her food requirements, if a little inclined to doubt her analyses until they'd repeated each and every one for themselves.
Some things,
Mac had concluded with satisfaction,
crossed species barriers with no trouble at all.
They'd left intrigued with the challenge of finding more fungal preparations she would prefer.

The notion of Mac having a functionally distinct digestive system was carefully avoided by all parties.

“I am gratified. You look more as you did,
Lamisah
. If you don't mind a personal observation.”

Mac eyed the Dhryn. She did feel unexpectedly at peace. “And you, my dear Brymn, are becoming much too good at reading Humans.”

He didn't look worried. “It is not as difficult as I once thought.”

“I could say the same.”

Two more Dhryn wandered into the room, exchanged the briefest of bows with Brymn, then wandered out again. Mac watched them leave and sighed. “I guess this is going to happen all the time.”

“Of course not. You keep inviting them.”

“I—I do not.”

“You do, you know.” Brymn hooted.

Mac narrowed her eyes. “I'll bite. What aren't you telling me?”

He seemed overcome with laughter, rocking back and forth, hooting softly to himself all the while.

She pretended to throw something at him. “What's going on?”

“Ah. I see there remains a gap in your excellent knowledge of Dhryn.” Another hoot. “Come with me,
Lamisah
.”

Brymn wouldn't explain until they stood in her place of greetings, nothing more than an almost square room forming the entrance to her apartment. It was marked by a door to the large common hallway that faced an inner wall decorated with a painting; the remaining walls opened into arches that led into her place of work and her kitchen. Mac waited, more or less patiently, for the big alien to get to the point.

“This is your problem.” Brymn lifted his three left arms to the display in her hall, a rendering of a selection of fungal food items.

“It's a painting,” Mac said dubiously. “I found the display controls yesterday.” She didn't bother mentioning that she'd gone through about fifty choices before finally settling on what looked recognizable and hopefully harmless.

“Of course it's a painting. It is also an invitation. By exhibiting food in your entry, you elicit the reaction of hunger and the expectation of a social gathering. There is a pronounced subtext of professional discourse which doubtless excited the Esteemed Academics beyond restraint. Let us hope your dispute with them over the analysis did not leave a bad taste.” He hooted at his own joke.

Mac looked at the painting, then at Brymn, then back at the painting. “You're saying that this is why I have strange Dhryn roaming through my apartment? Because I changed the display?”

He smiled. “Insightful as always, my
lamisah
.”

“Then why didn't any walk in before today?”

“Ah.” Brymn tapped the wall below the painting and a tiny door opened to reveal a now-familiar control. “This is the catalog that controls your greeting display,” he explained, holding up the silver oval to activate a shimmering screen on the wall, similar to that displayed on a Dhryn reading tablet. “There. This is what I left when I was here.” Now a plain green cube slowly rotated in the air before the wall. As it spun, one side flashed blue.

Mac made a face. “I know. That's why I changed it.”

“Leading to your visitors. This is a request for privacy. No Dhryn would enter. The Human equivalent—” Brymn gave it thought, then looked smug. “An agenda posted on a door. Home system Dhryn expect you to display a meaningful work of art.”

“Then you'd better leave me an all-purpose ‘ignorant Human' piece,” Mac said. “I don't know anything about art beyond my own reaction to it. And that goes for Human as well as Dhryn.”

A quieter but no less amused
hoot
. “Neither do most Dhryn. Don't worry, Mac. The catalog is organized by conversational topic. Once I show you how to search it, you will have no trouble conveying your meaning to potential visitors.” Brymn paused, then made another selection. “However, knowing you are deaf, I'm switching off the audio art option just in case.”

Brymn had brought his company—and put an end to the invasion of Mac's apartment—but no real news. The situation remained unchanged. The Progenitors had granted Mac sanctuary; they had yet to decide if they'd grant her access to anything outside of it. The Dhryn delivered this with a wary look, as if Mac was likely to explode. Another day, she might have. Today, she simply nodded and questioned her
lamisah
on protocol and manners, in case any more home system Dhryn came to visit.

Whether her earlier mood had been caused by coming off the Fastfix, the change in food, or real homesickness-—or all three—Mac found herself finally jolted back into the mind-set that kept her happily busy at the most inhospitable field stations.
The work
. She made Brymn promise to bring more information the next day.

Not that she needed to wait
, Mac thought triumphantly.
Had the Dhryn realized what a tool they'd left her?

She almost pushed Brymn out the door. The moment he was gone, she dragged a chair into the place of greetings and pulled out her imp.
The one that would transmit her data.

Focus, Mac,
she told herself. The choice of art was determined by the topic about to be discussed between host and visitor, or visitors. Brymn claimed it inspired and focused the conversation, something Mac thought could be very useful at Norcoast before funding meetings. Here, Mac deemed it a stratagem to cope with a very dense population. Brymn had told her that his kind liked being close together. “A Dhryn is with other Dhryn or he is not,” had been the phrase of the moment. But even if they enjoyed close proximity, Mac thought, it must help to have a mutually understood protocol.

Brymn had shown her how to use the catalog. Many pieces were abstract, listed by mood as well as topic.
Perfect.
She didn't have to know what a Dhryn thought of what he saw for her purpose.

Mac began flipping through the cataloged pieces at random, recording her emotional response to each on her imp. After a while, the place of greetings filled with semiconscious whistling as she became more and more absorbed. The chair was abandoned for the floor, then the floor for the chair.

Biological necessity interrupted, so while Mac was in the kitchen she grabbed a packet and water bottle. Back to work. Supper was a blue stick that reminded Mac of chalk, washed down with tepid water. The Dhryn didn't refrigerate.

Globes, bubbles, spheres of all sorts. Lines and shadow plays. Harsh geometrics.
Mac gave each equal consideration, sometimes wincing at the colors, sometimes struck by beauty that perhaps crossed species lines. Or her pleasure misunderstood the artist.

She stopped when her eyes could no longer focus. After rinsing her head with water, Mac returned. This time, she recorded the expected Dhryn response to each abstract as claimed by the catalog. The entries were filled with florid and extravagant language—
what was it about describing the impact of art?
—so Mac was careful to only use those that referred specifically to reactions. There were colors listed by the catalog for which her mind had no English equivalents, implying the Dhryn saw into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Mac avoided those works of art as well.

Mac carried her results to her workplace, noting absently that it was night. Leaning her elbows on the desk, she watched the flickering display as her imp took her responses and compared them to the Dhryn's.

Ah.
Reasonable congruence over which shapes, colors, and tones induced feelings of peace, contentment, or harmony in both Dhryn and herself.

Mac's fingers drew through the display, bringing up a troubling divergence when the emotions involved alarm, discomfort, or rage.

Turquoise, for instance, was the dominant shade in images the catalog listed as eliciting anxiety and anger. Black was not an option before civil conversation, sure to incite violence. And yellow?

“Well, well.” Mac tilted her chair back, shaking her head in disbelief. Apparently, the brighter hues were guaranteed to set one's limbs trembling with fear. The catalog recommended its use only for hazardous material storage.

So naturally, her entire wardrobe was yellow.

No wonder the poor Dhryn tended to be agitated around her.
Mac couldn't begin to guess what
Pasunah
's captain and crew must have thought.

“Another great first impression, Em.” Mac's chuckle came out tired, but real. “Drenching myself and my quarters in their urine couldn't have helped.”

A fine way to introduce humanity to the home system
.

Mac took the time to make a recording for the folks back home, viewing this as the least she could do for Haven's future Human visitors.

The next day, Mac enlisted the aid of the Esteemed Academics to make her wardrobe more suitable, envisioned panicked crowds should she walk about clad in yellow. They'd accepted the challenge with alacrity, fascinated by the various fabrics of her clothes.

She then spent two long and anxious days wrapped in a tablecloth, reading reports and hoping for the best. Eventually, Mac found herself nursing the increasingly faint hope the Dhryn had understood she expected her clothing back.

She needn't have feared. The Dhryn managed the improbable. Even her raincoat, a thoughtful inclusion in her luggage, was returned a different, more Dhryn-friendly color.

Colors
.

Mac had put on the quietest of her improved wardrobe and been unsure whether to laugh or tear at her hair. Bold stripes of purple, red, blue, white, and lime-green had raced around her middle, lined both arms, and plunged to her feet.
She'd just needed a pair of oversized shoes and a red nose
.

“
Lamisah
. You look wonderful.” Brymn had applauded her new look, but Mac held dire suspicions that her Dhryn's taste didn't match that of anyone else on this world. She tried not to believe the Esteemed Academics had done their best to turn her into either a laughingstock or a target.

Clothing issues aside, over the following week, Mac discovered that Brymn hadn't exaggerated the importance of her greeting hall. Her
lamisah
might be exceedingly casual in his approach to such matters, as Dhryn went, but home system individuals were only truly comfortable with her after the ritual exchange of names. Better still were greetings that included a lengthy admiration of whatever art was on display—a decided inconvenience, since Mac hardly knew what to admire. Fortunately the same works were available to all Dhryn, so her visitors came equipped with compliments no matter what she'd picked.

Mac wasn't at all surprised when her increasing grasp of things Dhryn was matched by a decrease in the number of her visitors. The novelty factor she provided by simply existing must have worn off. Even the Esteemed Academics had realized she had no startling Human insights into their subject. Food, tablets, and other supplies were delivered without requiring a formal greeting. Of course, Mac, not realizing this for the first while, had done her utmost to prove she knew the protocol and insisted on bringing the delivery beings into her place of greetings to admire art. As a result, those bringing deliveries now left them outside her door, preferring to knock, then run.