Regeneration (Czerneda) (53 page)

“I don’t watch them.”

“I’m not surprised.” She sniffed the air. “C’mon. There are more here.”

More wasn’t the right word,
Mac decided a moment later, as she and Norris stared down at what had been Dhryn. “Three,” she guessed, using a toe to shift what remained of a leg so she could see underneath. There was clothing. Bone. Little else. “They’ve been eaten,” she added helpfully.

“I can see that.” To his credit, Norris was stone-faced and calm. He raised his scanner, passing it over what was left. “Cannibalism,” he concluded briskly. “There have been cases.”

Mac raised her eyebrows. “There have?”

“Asteroid miners. Pre-transect deep space missions. Not uncommon.”

“You’re making that up.”

He pulled out his imp with a challenging look. Mac shook her head, feeling again the Progenitor’s remorse.
And appetite.
“You could be right,” she admitted grudgingly. “Sure we can’t leave now?”

“Of course not.” Norris nodded to the hangar exit. “We’ve two and a half hours left. The only danger here is ignorance.”

“I’ll remind you you said that,” she told him, but followed anyway.

The engineer knew the ship.
Knew the floor plan,
Mac corrected, watching Norris closely. He made the right turns. He announced, correctly, what would be behind doors before opening them. She was less impressed that he expected her to go first through those doors.

Although, to Mac’s unspoken relief, they found no more corpses. The doors led to nothing more exciting than intersecting corridors and holds. Many holds, crammed to their ceilings. The
Uosanah
had been an active freighter, fully loaded with goods bound for Cryssin Colony, likely en route to Haven before the Ro attack had changed everything.

Norris was hunting for a link to the ship’s data systems, which, he claimed, should be available within the holds. If they found one, they wouldn’t have to go all the way to the
Uosanah’s
bridge. On that basis, Mac was happy to tag along, but so far, they’d had no luck.
So much for floor plans.

The latest hold was the largest yet. Norris cheered, convinced it must hold an access panel. While he checked his ’screen for details on this part of the ship, Mac pulled aside the wrapping on the nearest crate and picked apart packing material until she uncovered its contents. “Ah.”

“You’ve found something?” Norris demanded, hurrying over.

She lifted out an umbrella and opened it for his inspection. Bold stripes of red, green, and orange ran around it. There was a second handhold, farther up the handle. Well-suited to Dhryn. “They don’t like rain.”

“Dr. Connor, we’re looking for ship’s data. There’s no time for—”

“Speaking of which, it’s suppertime on the
Joy
. I don’t know about you, but I missed lunch.”
Missed breakfast and lost lunch,
but the difference didn’t matter to her empty stomach. Mac leaned the umbrella against the crate and pulled open her bag. From it, she drew two nutrient bars, one of which she passed to an astonished Norris. She found her bottle of water and took a slug. “I’ve learned to travel prepared,” she said, biting into the bar. “Go ahead. I’ve more.”

He sniffed it, then took a bite. He made a face. “This is awful.”

“Stops you eating too many.” Her stomach growled and Mac took another, bigger bite. She waved her stick at Norris. “We could use a ship like yours at Base—my research station. Any chance of getting the specs? When we get back,” she qualified, handing him the water. “We have transparent membrane, of course, but to go to any depth we need something that can take pressure.”

He gave her a strange look. “My ship? Oh. You mean the projector. It’s just a fancy internal display, Dr. Connor. What—did you think my ship somehow turned transparent?”

Touché.
Mac laughed. “Biologist,” she quipped. “But the end result is extraordinary. I’d really like to have it.”

“You’re welcome to the schematics,” he replied, tucking the rest of his bar into a pocket. “We should—”

“Get going. Yes.” Mac finished hers and put away the water bottle, feeling almost normal again.
Amazing what a little sustenance could do.
“What now?”

“There should be a panel in here.” Norris checked the time and shook his head. “It’s taking too long. We’ll have to split up to check along the walls. You know what to look for—”

“Not really.”

“Any panel that has the outline of the ship on or beside it. Call me if you find one.”

“No com.” At least, none that he’d given her.
Fieldwork amateur.

Norris grinned and shouted, “Hello!”

The echoes reverberated throughout the hold.

“Point taken,” Mac said, grinning back. She looked around. In keeping with all Dhryn structures she’d seen, the hold walls were at angles less than perpendicular. Racks laden with crates lined both sides. Here, the left wall angled sharper than the right, its first rack barely above her head. Norris would have to duck. “I’ll take this side,” she offered.

On impulse, she grabbed the umbrella.

The center aisle of the hold had been bright and open. Along the wall, the light was lessened by the overhead rack. Worse, Mac found herself passing through the shadows cast by huge boxes. Each band of darkness was regular and sharp. Five quick steps took her back into light.

It wasn’t pitch. She could see well enough to know there weren’t panels of any description, but to be sure, she trailed the fingers of her left hand over the cool metal. Her right clutched the umbrella. An unlikely weapon; uncertain comfort. She considered dropping it, but couldn’t find the right spot.
Mustn’t leave a mess.

Within the next patch of shadow, her foot kicked something small and sent it skittering forward into the light. Mac bent to pick it up. “Well, I’ll be . . .” she murmured. It was a Dhryn food cylinder. She held it up and peered inside. Not empty. Its contents had dried and shriveled into a lump.

There were more. The swathe of light at her feet was littered with them. “They weren’t starving,” she whispered uneasily. She followed the refuse into the aisle and found herself in front of an open door.

Mac stepped inside what could only be a storage unit. Its shelves were lined with tidy rows of food cylinders, thousands of them. Only near the door were any disturbed. There, a shelf was smashed and cylinders were scattered everywhere, as if . . .

She backed out of the unit, hand tight on the umbrella. “Norris!”

“Norris!” Mac put her back to the hold wall.

Something
scurried
along the overhead rack.

Her breath caught.
It couldn’t be.

She could hear running footsteps and didn’t dare call out again. Didn’t dare do anything. Sweat trickled down her forehead, evaporating to chill in the dry air of the hold. She didn’t dare shiver.

There. Above and to her right. The direction Norris would come.

Mac didn’t think, she exploded into a run, weaving between crates, heading away from the Ro—
the walker
—and the man. As she ran, she found her voice and shouted. “The Ro are here. Go back, Norris! Call for help!” The words were punctuated by her thudding feet.

Loud, but not as close. If the walker understood what she’d said—had chosen to chase Norris—they were in worse trouble.

There was worse?
“Hurry, Norris!”

She’d run into the far wall of the hold soon. Mac began searching for a hiding place, cursing the tidy habits of Dhryn under her breath. Each crate was neatly aligned with its neighbor, offering nothing that would shelter a speck of dust, let alone a desperate Human.

Wait.
Just ahead two crates overhung their pallet, as if pushed. Tearing off her backpack, Mac flung herself on her stomach and wiggled into the tight space beneath. She squeezed back as far she could, pulling the pack and umbrella under with her.

Then did her best to be invisible.

 

 

 

N
OTHING TO SEE here
. Mac did her best to believe it.
Maybe the Ro would, too.
Her legs were already cramping and her right arm, caught beneath her body, would shortly be asleep. These minor discomforts were welcome distractions. She wanted to avoid thinking about the corridors of the Dhryn ship—of Norris running back—of what it would be like to try and remember the way when something was chasing you, something you couldn’t see . . . holding your breath so you could listen for any sound . . .

She hadn’t heard anything more, from the Ro or Norris. She might have been wrong. Norris would have a comment or two about that.

For once, she’d love to take the blame.
She took slow, light breaths.

Something stank. Mac took a deeper sniff and almost gagged. She knew that smell.

All her senses must have been shut down by fear to miss it. Mac only now appreciated that her shoulder and hip weren’t pressed against another crate, but into something yielding.

She didn’t panic.
Nothing wrong with sharing space with a corpse,
she assured herself.

Unless it was warm.

Mac held the air in her lungs, listening over the frantic thudding of her heart. No doubt about it.

She exhaled slowly and gently, resuming her own breathing.
After all,
she reasoned wildly,
she’d been fine so far. Why suffocate?

She lay on her stomach, her right arm pinned beneath, her head turned so she could look out of her hiding place.
As if she’d see the Ro walker.
Now, gradually, Mac lifted her head and rolled it on her chin, eyes straining at the black shadows behind her.

A small piece of shadow moved closer, tentatively, slowly. She made herself stay still as a three-fingered hand formed in the light. It reached toward her face then withdrew, reached again and stopped in midair, trembling. Its skin was puckered and seamed, the digits twisted. Dark drops fell from the palm.

Mac looked harder and made out the glint of an eye in the darkest shadow.
Just her luck.
She felt profoundly abused.
The only hiding place from the Ro, inhabited by the Dhryn version of insane.

When adult Dhryn failed to Flower into their final metamorphosis, it was called the Wasting. Those trapped within their degrading bodies were shunned, and set aside to die. Brymn had feared that fate. Ordinary Dhryn “did not think of it.” Mac had been . . . curious.