Regeneration (Czerneda) (48 page)

She’d set her imp to an audible alarm, cued for that announcement from Mudge, waiting on the bridge. When it went off, she paused, hands tight on the rung.
Up or down.

“Down.”

Mac’s feet and hands thudded against the rungs as quickly as she could move them, her left palm making a slightly crisper sound.
The one time she could use the Frow.
One rung . . . two . . . three . . . her right foot slipped on the fourth and she recovered. Five . . .

One rung . . . two . . . three . . . her right foot slipped on the fourth and—

Mac stopped and held on, breathing more quickly. She knew what that moment of déjà vu signified.

She resumed climbing down, trying not to estimate how long it took to dock a ship and cycle through an air lock, for someone from that ship and air lock to hand a small package over to the right authority, for that person to return through the air lock into that ship and for that ship to remove itself and move to a safe distance. Because if she did . . .

Mac stopped and rested her forehead on the cold metal.

“As if I know anything about starships,” she scolded herself, and started moving again. “Maybe they throw things at each other.”

But Mac no longer hurried, afraid of what might not be waiting.

“You should have seen it, Norcoast.” Mudge was practically aglow. “A splendid maneuver. Simply outstanding.”

Executive Officer Darcy Townee preened.
The only word for it,
Mac thought, fascinated. “We work on our precision.”

“And it shows.” He seemed about to bow, but turned it into a more restrained duck of the head. “I was privileged to be on the bridge during the event.”

“Anytime, Mr. Mudge,” offered Townee.

“Charles, please.”

“Darcy.”

Mac took a deep breath and let it out. She’d wandered up and down the section of the ship open to passengers in search of a courier package, trying not to appear too eager while asking anyone likely. Intercepting these two on their way back to the Origins area had been promising—until she’d realized neither was carrying any sort of pouch.

“I guess there’s no mail,” she said.
And Nik was dead.

“Pardon?” asked Townee.

“She means messages,” Mudge translated, remorse wiping the smile from his face as he took in Mac’s expression, which mustn’t have been the “don’t care” one she’d attempted.

“We entered the gate too soon,” she managed, looking only at Mudge.
What had it been—radiation, the Dhryn, his wound . . . some other danger no training or technology could avoid . . .
“There couldn’t have been time.”

“Now, Norcoast, there’s no reason to—to think the worst,” he told her, as if hearing her thoughts, not her words. “The
Joy
didn’t rendezvous with a courier, she took one on board. It’s sitting in the ship’s hold now. The maneuver I praised was the
Joy
scooping up the waiting ship while launching another to stay in Sol. It will transmit our messages to Earth.”

“While incoming messages were sent immediately to their recipients on board, Dr. Connor,” Townee explained, looking puzzled. “Don’t you have yours on your imp?”

Mudge
harrumphed
for her attention before Mac had to gather her wits to reply. “Darcy, there would be some delay releasing physical items, surely. Security and safety checks?”

“You’re expecting freight?” She sounded mildly offended, as if the Ministry’s fleet of couriers was being subverted to carry stuffed salmon.

Mac shot Mudge a look of pure gratitude, uncaring if the officer saw it. “Something like that,” she said. “How soon—”

“Dr. Connor.” “Dr. Connor.” Rumnor and another of the Grimnoii came up behind, moaning her name.

Mac felt like moaning herself.
Aliens had the worst timing.
“Now’s really not the best—”

“Now is when the Sinzi-ra must see you.”

“Ureif?” Mac asked. “But—”

“Ureif’s busy on the bridge, Dr. Connor.” Townee’s eyes narrowed. “We arrived into a situation. Com traffic’s heavy and I’m sure he can’t be—”

“Sinzi-ra Myriam.” “Fy awaits. Hurry.”

They might sound and look miserable, but Mac recognized determination when she saw it.
Along with significantly greater mass.
“I’d better go, then,” she sighed, but gave Mudge a look she hoped he could read. “Oversight?”

He gave that brisk
man-on-a-mission
nod, and she felt a surge of relief.

Mac resisted the urge to hug him.

The Grimnoii took up positions to either side on the way to the Sinzi’s quarters. Given their bulk, and the variously jutting points that glinted menacingly with each ponderous step, their little procession effectively wiped the hall of other pedestrians. Mac grimaced an apology to those ducking into doorways or backing up.
It would take longer to argue with the Grimnoii than to get there.

They stopped in front of the closed door, waiting. Mac waited, too, sneaking sidelong glances at her escort. Their eyes had stopped producing the congealing yellow tears, so obvious at the consulate. Without them, and the crust they produced, the hair on their faces and chests was a clean, shiny brown.
Much more appealing.
She couldn’t resist. “Rumnor? Your eyes are much—” she sought a neutral term, “—drier.”

“You noticed.” He heaved a sigh that rattled knives. “They itch, too. We ran out of drops last night.”

“Drops?”

The other Grimnoii lowered his voice to a confidential bass mutter, his breath vaguely floral. “We’re allergic.”

“To—” Mac realized both were looking at her, blinking,
now that she knew to pay attention,
their swollen and red-rimmed eyes. “Oh. To me?”

“Humans. Mygs. “ Deep and sad. “Everyone we’ve met.”

Feeling a quite extraordinary guilt, Mac tried not to breathe in their direction.
Nothing she could do about shed skin.
“I can ask the captain,” she offered. “Maybe the medlab has something you can use.”

“No need.” “The Sinzi-ra knows and will care for us.”

“Speaking of the Sinzi-ra,” Mac ventured, eyeing the still-closed door. “Shouldn’t we let her know we’re here?’

The Grimnoii looked at one another, then at Mac. “There is a difficulty,” Rumnor admitted.

“Faras wishes to see you,” his companion whispered. “Yt is unsure.”

“Hush!” Rumnor growled.

A Sinzi, with disagreeing selves?
Whatever else, it didn’t bode well for Fy as a Sinzi-ra. “When in doubt,” Mac decided. She knocked firmly on the door.

The Grimnoii drew back in apparent horror.

The door opened on darkness. A long finger appeared in the light from the corridor. It stroked the air in a beckoning gesture, its rings of silver and gold tumbling up and down, before it disappeared again.

Mac stepped inside the room, unsurprised by either the white sand underfoot or the failure of her escort to follow.

The door closed, and she couldn’t see a thing. From the restless tinkle of metal to metal, the Sinzi was to her left.
Somewhere.

Mac considered the situation and hadn’t a clue.
When in doubt,
she reminded herself again—as she had many students—
ask
. “Do you not want me to see you, Sinzi-ra?”

“You have eyes, do you not?” The calm gentle voice might have allayed concerns about being locked in the dark with a crazed alien; the underlying assumption gave Mac pause.

“Human eyes are adapted to use our sun’s peak output, Sinzi-ra. I require light between four hundred and seven hundred nanometers.”

“So narrow a range. Remarkable. How do you manage?”

A flashlight helps,
Mac almost said, but restrained herself. She heard the Sinzi moving in the sand, her long-toed feet lifting and pressing down, the brush of her gown along the fine grains. Then she blinked in ship-normal light. “Thank you,” she said at once.

Fy arched her neck and tilted back her head, a posture Mac had never seen Anchen perform. Her eyes glinted. She held this position for five seconds, then returned to normal, her mouth pursed as she studied Mac.
As if she’d been expecting something in return,
Mac decided.
What?

“My apologies, Dr. Connor. I do not know about Humans. In fact, I do not know much about any non-Sinzi life-forms. My work has not involved you. Until now.” A gesture with two fingers. “I feel woefully inadequate.”

She
felt inadequate
? Mac wasn’t sure whether to run from the room or not say another word.
She wasn’t qualified for this conversation.
“Please, call me Mac. Anchen does,” she added, waving her hand in a vaguely Earthward direction.

With startling speed, Fy rushed toward her. Mac held her ground and her breath, but the taller alien stopped short of contact. Instead, one finger lifted to indicate Mac’s right hand. Or rather what she wore on that hand. The
lamnas
.

“These are not yours.”

Was that a problem?
Running became a serious option, but Mac kept still. “They’re from Anchen,” she agreed. “A gift.”

“Yes. The other promise.” The Sinzi leaned over as if to study her, head swiveling to bring one set of eyes after the other to bear.

“What other . . .” Mac’s mouth snapped shut.
Of course.
“What promise did Nikolai Trojanowski make to Anchen?”

Fingers flashed to loop before her eyes and the Sinzi answered. “To find the truth about the Dhryn and bring it back to her.”

Mac licked dry lips. “And—Anchen’s?”

“To maintain his connection to you, regardless of distance. An interesting challenge.”

“You were involved?”

The Sinzi dropped her fingers from her eyes. “Of course. A promise reliant on our system affects every transect engineer. In this case, we agreed to supply Nikolai’s ship with six explorer probes, each capable of opening a temporary no-space passage to return home.”

Handy,
Mac thought numbly, aware it was far more than that. As far as she knew, no other species had been granted access to the Sinzi’s cherished probes. They were used to contact and assess potential new members of the Interspecies Union.

“Home,” she echoed. “To Earth.”

Pursed lips. Then, “Was that an inappropriate word, Mac? I mean no disparagement to Human theological or historical beliefs but I refer to N, the system of Sinzi biological origin. From there, your
lamnas
and any other information are transferred to waiting Human courier vessels and sent to Sol System.”

Human ships, in the famed Sinzi home system?
The Inner Council must have had polite fits.
The oldest friends of the Sinzi, the systems first connected by their transects. The powerful.

With more of that disconcerting speed, Fy went to sit in one of the room’s four jelly-chairs. When Mac didn’t move, the Sinzi again pursed her lips before speaking.
Confusion,
Mac judged it. “Don’t Humans use chairs, Mac?”

A Sinzi with no experience with aliens,
she reminded herself, missing Anchen. Mac sat in the jelly-chair nearest Fy, sinking in with an involuntary smile. “Oh, yes,” she said.

“You must tell me at once if my behavior is offensive,” the Sinzi urged. “Ureif believes I can manage, but—” Her left fingers trailed in the sand while the right formed a tense knot on her thigh. “Yt is disconcerted.”

She knew that feeling.
Empathy warmed her voice. “And you must ask me if you find anything about Humans confusing.”