Survival (9 page)

“Don't forget the Dhryn.”

“Ah.” Mac left her finger on one particularly large drop. “The Dhryn misplace an entire field trip's worth of students on their Cryssin colony.” She let her hand fall to her side and faced Emily. “Don't get me wrong, Em. I sympathize with everyone involved. These are all tragedies. But nothing from the Secretary General explains why a handful of missing person reports put Brymn in my quarters and our population survey on hold.”

“There's more missing than these people. Information on our Nikolai, for one.”

Mac blinked. “What information?”

“Exactly. There isn't anything in the message about either Brymn or Trojanowski. Why?” Emily lowered her voice. “Or was it there—and someone tampered with it?”

For an instant, Mac seriously considered the notion. Then she laughed. “You, my dear Dr. Mamani, have read far too many books of the wrong sort. It isn't there, because it isn't necessary. Brymn will enlighten us tonight on his credentials and, hopefully, why he's here at all. As for our ‘field operative'?” Mac paused, then shook her head. “To land this choice assignment, he's either offended the wrong people or is lousy at his job. Or both. In any event, there's no reason to believe we'll be stuck with them long enough for their backgrounds to matter.”

Emily's long fingers played with the oversized emerald of her necklace, a family heirloom she never bothered to lock away, confident no one would believe she'd wear something so rare and expensive at Base. Mac had to concede her logic, even though she couldn't help occasionally translating the bauble's worth into an upgrade to the docking pads.

She knew the signs.
“I take it you disagree, Em.”

“You did take note of the locations and dates,” Emily said in an odd voice. “The disappearances do not appear random.”

“It's not like you to jump to conclusions from so small a sample—”

“It's not like you to put your own convenience ahead of the data.”

“My—” Mac closed her mouth over the protest and stared at Emily. Rain drummed on the ceiling and walls like so many impatient fingers. “Is that what I'm doing?” she asked finally.

Emily raised one eyebrow and waited.

“Damn.”

“We each have our failings at times. We won't mention your fashion sense,
sí?
”

Mac pulled out the envelope and waved it in the air. “Just show me what I missed.”

“I can tell you. All of the locations are along the Naralax Transect.” Perhaps sensing Mac's confusion, Emily shook her head, then drew a line in the air between them. “You never travel, do you? There are thousands of transects maintained by the Interspecies Union—”

“No-space corridors,” Mac said dryly. “A.k.a. instant travel between connected solar systems. I may not gallivant like some, but I do know a bit about what's outside the atmosphere. So where does this Naralax Transect go?”

“Your ignorance is astounding.”

Mac raised one brow. “I prefer to think of it as selective. So—are you going to tell me if there's anything special about the Naralax or continue to berate my choice of sciences?”

Emily shook her head in resignation. “Special? Depends on your definition. Home, for some. A dozen Human colonies. A few hundred non-Human systems, including our friend Brymn's. A record, of sorts. Our most distant trading partner, Thitus Prime, is reached via the Naralax. Beyond Thitus, the Naralax extends—oh—a few systems more.” Emily's light tone gave no warning. “One famous. The Hift System. The rest, infamous.”

“The Chasm.” As she uttered the words, Mac felt the hairs lifting on the back of her neck.

“Ah, she does know something. Yes, the Naralax is the only transect that extends into the Chasm. There's a special destination for you, if you're a prospector, archaeologist, or tourist with a taste for the macabre.”

Oh, she knew about the Chasm.
Every biologist, every religious order—probably every being who learned of it—worried over its very existence at some point in their lives. “There's nothing in the Chasm,” Mac said. Except for system after system containing life-capable planets, all completely without life.

Oh, it had been there once. It had—disappeared—three thousand years ago. That much, and only that, they knew.

She shook off a chill.
Stuff of fables
. “Don't tell me,” Mac continued, raising her voice into a falsetto. “Chasm Ghouls have kidnapped all these beings and are on their way to Earth next. We're the only ones who can save the day.” Before Emily could do more than begin to look offended, Mac relented. “That was uncalled for—”

“That's for sure—”

“I am grateful for any insights you have, Em. Frankly, if it were up to me alone, I'd stuff this message down your Nikolai's throat and let him look after our guest.”

“Thus causing an interspecies' incident before supper?” Emily said, the corners of her lips curving up. “One would think you enjoyed notoriety. The vidbots would be here before dessert.” Her smile faded. “Mac. The locations and dates matter because they occur as if whomever or whatever was behind the disappearances is traveling the Naralax from Thitus Prime toward Human-dominated space. The affected Dhryn colony is only systems away from our outermost settlement. If this pattern continues, the next beings to disappear may well be Human. I'd say that's valid reason for the Ministry and us to take this seriously.”

“Serial murders. Mysterious disappearances. They happen all the time,” Mac protested, stuffing the message back in her pocket. “We're talking thousands of worlds. Trillions of beings. Standards of morality that vary from incomprehensible to those that would make an alpha shark swim deep and fast. Let alone species like the Ehztif and Setihak . . . Sethilak . . . or however you say the damn name—you know, the ones who eat one another given half a chance and a dark alley. With all that, what makes these few incidents so significant?”

“Your first question for our dinner guests, I presume,” Emily said, gesturing to the door. Then her slim hand turned palm up, stopping Mac before she could take a step. “The hair. At least the hair. Please, Mac.”

“You've got to be kid—”

“Think of it as camouflage.”

“You're going to be a pest about this, aren't you?”

“I'm right and you know it.” Before Mac could move out of reach, Emily had grabbed her braid's end and tugged smartly. Hair, still damp enough to smell faintly of soap, cascaded over Mac's shoulder and threatened to cover one eye. “There,” Emily pronounced with satisfaction.

Mac shook her head to settle the mass down the center of her back, shoving the strand over her left eye behind her ear. “Happy now?”

Emily's wolfish smile wouldn't have looked out of place on one of the Haida totems that still startled visitors to the shore. “I will be.”

- Portent -

T
HE FIRST drop plunged into the fine sand, coalescing grains into a tiny, glistening ball, green against the dusky red of the dune. The ball slipped downslope very slightly, drawing a shallow line behind.

More drops fell, more balls formed, more lines clawed at the massive upcurve of the dune.

More. Drops struck already dampened balls, shattering them into smaller, darker portions that spread the green tint, the lie of life, across the sand.

Each impact sent its vibration coursing through the dune, the sum of all the drops a siren call to those who spread sensory hairs and waited for opportunity.

Serrated claws pushed through the sand, their owners as eager to sip from the rare cloudburst as they were to hunt others with the same intention. Slender whiskers trembled in search of imminent danger as other, barely larger creatures were drawn into the evening air. Writhing nodes of worms collected beneath what should have been the moisture they needed to reproduce.

More drops fell, dissolving claw tip and whisker, searing away fur and flesh, melting everything they touched or that touched them into more balls of sand.

As the balls slipped downslope, the mouths were waiting.

4

 

 

 

T
HE GALLERY was on the main level of Pod

Three, located there by practicality, since Three was the only residence pod in operation year-round. There were smaller cafeterias within the other residential pods, where students and staff could make their own meals. Most came here, saying they preferred the convenience and camaraderie of eating together. As a former student herself, Mac knew it had more to do with having someone else wash dishes.

The gallery was large enough to accommodate everyone on Base, but Mac had never seen this many filled tables on a late summer afternoon.
Was no one but Tie working?
Hopefully no ongoing experiments—besides hers and Emily's—were being ruined by neglect.

Not that she blamed the excited crowd. Most students had been here since spring thaw and novelty was a treasure. Their “guest” was the former, if not necessarily the latter.

He was sitting at the head table already—or rather beside it. Someone had done some quick work to modify a second table for the Dhryn so it sloped at an angle parallel to the alien's normal posture. Holes had been cut in the tabletop to support a variety of bowls and other utensils. The table leaned in the other direction as well, there being only enough room on the raised dais that held the head table for one end of it. Mac hoped the Dhryn could manage. The head table was supposedly for the research leaders, but was usually commandeered by whichever students got there first. The dais' elevation gave those sitting there the best view of the wallscreen during hockey games and other events.

No students up there now,
Mac noted, wending her way through a maze of chairs, bags, and long, and some quite hairy, legs. She nodded and smiled in greeting, but didn't stop to chat with anyone, reasonably sure Emily would prod her in the back to get to where she was expected. Mac would have happily sat with the students, but there were two empty places beside the Dhryn.

The rest of the seats were already taken by Mac's fellow lead scientists: Lee Fyock, Martin Svehla, Kammie Noyo, Jirair Grebbian. The order in which they sat had nothing to do with relative seniority. Mac's and Kammie's work was year-round, which was why they split the administrative duties for Norcoast. The rest arrived each spring with their own teams of scientists, techs, and students, cluttering up available space and demanding more than their share of equipment. Once the resulting waves stopped crashing about, everyone slipped into research mode. The only command structure, as such, lay between the students and their supervisors and, by early summer, that typically degenerated, leaving only a group of individuals focused on their work.

There was, however, an unspoken acknowledgment that lovestruck Lee could sit beside Emily—who tolerated his attention because he lent her books—and Jirair, who tended to wander absently from any meal halfway through, always had an end seat. The other researchers would be either sitting with their students, in the field, or in a few cases, taking their meals in their lab. There were always some who remained blissfully oblivious to anything outside their work.

Mac glanced around the room. Trojanowski was conspicuously absent. She nodded to her bright-eyed colleagues as she took the seat closest to the Dhryn's table. No doubt they were brimming with curiosity. Mac paused to admire the cutlery, not having seen this many pointy objects on display in the gallery since Jirair's students had built a ceiling-high castle from sea urchin husks and left the remains to fumigate the entire pod. Emily sat beside her.