Regeneration (Czerneda) (22 page)

“I haven’t had time to find out,” she admitted. Or the chance. Emily’s sister, Maria, had turned her back when Mac had approached to say hello in person. She didn’t blame her.
Too many calls with bad news or evasion.
“Em’s—I think she’s lost her taste for surprises.”

“Hopefully not for parties.”

Mac smiled as she swung around to greet the newcomer. “John! How have you been?”

“Hi Mac, Dr. Connor. Owen, Blake. Nice to see you again. Mr. Mudge.” Her former postdoc, now on staff with his own small department, returned her smile as he took the seat the senior Dr. Connor offered. Mac was impressed. When he’d first arrived, Emily’s outspoken nature could send John Ward bolting from a room—her record was under five seconds. Mac didn’t think that would happen now. He’d somehow grown into himself when she wasn’t looking.

Or she was finally looking,
Mac chided herself. “Keeping busy,” she said. “And you? How’s the new department?”

He shrugged. “I’ll let you know once Dr. Stewart settles back in. Pretty disruptive, having her take off just when classes were starting at UBC. Kammie doesn’t seem worried about a repeat, but I’ve let her know she’s on probation with me.”

John wouldn’t have been told how his new statistics prof, Dr. Persephone Stewart, had been recalled from Norcoast to act in her other specialty at the consulate, nor would he know, with luck, that ’Sephe was back to help Emily. Luckily for both agent and budding department head, ’Sephe was delighted to return to academia.
Probation?
With luck, that would be the most danger ’Sephe would need to overcome.

To avoid that labyrinth, Mac focused on John. “See?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I knew you’d enjoy all that power over people.”

“Mac!” John protested, and proved he could still blush.

She took pity and let her father proceed to ask interested questions about John’s new program. She listened, but not only to the conversation at her table. Her eyes half-closed, Mac let herself bask in chatter, returning to a world where vying approaches to the remote assay of smolt stomach contents were as eagerly debated as the latest hockey trade. The inside of Base, its heart, hadn’t changed.

Outside? She gazed through the transparent wall behind Blake’s head. Base had been towed from this site, opposite the mouth of the Tannu, almost sixteen years ago. The layout of the pods was the same as before. Mac could believe no time had passed at all, that this was her first field season at Norcoast and her family here to check out the place.

Blake’s eyes met hers and locked, brimming with questions. Mac deliberately ran the fingers of her new hand over the tabletop. “Let’s take a walk, guys.”

“Surely we can eat first,” Owen objected. His playful expression changed when he looked at her. He understood. She had things to tell them.
Difficult things.

“Ah, Mac?” This from John. “After eating, there’s some other—well—stuff. You know. You should stick around.”

Her heart sank. Mac glanced over her shoulder and winced. Sure enough, the head table, usually empty unless there was a game on, was set for the senior staff.
And,
she sighed inwardly,
there were flowers
. Somewhat wilted and prone to lean, but definitely flowers.

She gave John a pleading look. “Tell me I don’t have to make a speech.”

“You don’t have to . . .” John let his voice trail away.

Her brother chuckled deep in his throat. “Oh, this should be good,” he predicted. “Remember that time up at the cottage, Mac, when you climbed on the table to lecture all of us about—”

“She’s got that look, Blake,” Owen warned. “You’d better watch it.”

“They haven’t served lunch yet.” Blake smiled angelically. “She’s got nothing to throw.”

“Norcoast, no!” this from Mudge as Mac pulled her imp from its pocket. She merely smiled back at her brother as she tossed the device up and down in one hand. “Really, Norcoast.”

“Don’t worry, Charles,” Norman Connor said serenely. “Well, unless shoes come off. Then you might want to duck.”

Family,
Mac thought, suddenly beyond content.

“Not bad.”

Mac, mulling through what she needed to say, gave Blake a surprised look. The two of them were walking ahead, Owen and her father close behind. “The speech?” She’d thought it had gone as poorly as such things usually did. She’d said the expected as quickly as possible and hoped she hadn’t sounded like an idiot.

The thank-yous, get-on-with-your-work part had been easy. The brief, supposedly safe announcement about her being temporarily seconded to an offworld research program, and not-quite-desperate plea to keep her updated from Base while she was gone, had brought a startling ovation, with no few tears and horrifyingly proud nods.

She was one of them,
she’d thought in a panic.
She hadn’t changed; she wouldn’t change.

As a consequence, she’d fumbled introducing Emily’s new role as visiting scholar, but Emily herself had stood at the perfect moment to warm applause, thanking everyone here, and Mac, for the opportunity.
Em hadn’t lost her touch with a crowd.

Her brother rubbed her head. “The haircut. I like it. What’s his name?”

The ocean was only a rope rail away.
Shame there wouldn’t be time to dry him off,
Mac grumbled to herself. The lev taking the Connors back to Vancouver was already docked, doors open, at the end of the adjoining walkway. She scuffed the toe of her shoe into the mem-wood instead. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?”

Blake laughed. “I know I’m smart. So? Do we get to meet him?”

Mac slowed, trailing her hand along the rope. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally, looking up at her brother. “He’s not in a safe place.”

He lost the teasing smile. “I’m sorry, Mac.”

She shrugged. “Nik’s like you. Smart. He’ll manage.” She found the spot she wanted and stopped, putting her back to the rail.

Sing-li, whose idea of discreet had turned out to be staying politely out of earshot, stopped too, as inconspicuous as a bear on a beach. He shrugged off her glare, but sat down on the walkway, pretending to study a passing gull.

Her father didn’t miss much. “Should I be grateful you have a watchdog or worried, Princess?”

“Both.”

At this, the three exchanged looks. “What can we do?” Owen asked simply.

Anchen had given her this, too,
Mac realized. No messages to be misunderstood or intercepted. No fake recordings to offer equally false reassurance. These few minutes to talk to her own.

The alien’s predisposition with meeting face-to-face had its merits.

“Maybe nothing,” she answered bluntly. “I can’t see—not yet—how this is going to go. Forget the media release—most of the Dhryn Progenitor ships aren’t accounted for. There could be over two hundred more hiding out there. They’re still a threat—” She hesitated.
Honesty now, if ever.
“The Dhryn are capable of consuming all life on a planet.”

Owen’s face set into harsh lines she’d never seen before, likely thinking of William and Nairee. “Can we defend ourselves?”

Mac thought of them, too. Her real hand strayed to the artificial one.
Her wrist dissolving in fire . . .
If the Dhryn returned in numbers?

She shook her head, once, unable to speak.

“Can we stop them?” her father asked, after exchanging looks with her brothers.

“No,” Mac found her voice. “Not alone. That’s what’s worse.”

“Gods, Mac,” Blake said. “What could be worse than the Dhryn?”

For an instant, she didn’t see the faces of her family, or the surrounding landscape she loved almost as much. For an instant, all Mac could see was a seething darkness, reaching for her; all she could feel was that voice ripping through every nerve. She shuddered free of memory. “The Ro—the Myrokynay—you’ve seen some of the reports. They exist. It’s true they killed the Dhryn who tried to attack Earth. What isn’t being told is that the Ro called the Dhryn here in the first place. When the Dhryn failed to attack us, the Ro destroyed their ships. There’s more.” She took a deep breath. “I believe the Ro made the Dhryn into what they are. Made them to serve a purpose. More than a weapon—I’m sure of it. The Chasm worlds were sterilized for a reason. I don’t know why. Not yet. I plan to.”

Her brothers nodded, accepting what was, in truth, her promise.

Her father looked thoughtful. “Your trip to Myriam. You think the answer’s there.”

“It’s the only place I have to look,” Mac amended. “A start.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed. “You’re more afraid of these Ro than the Dhryn. Why?”

“I’m afraid of them both.” Mac paused, wondering how far to go. “This isn’t about us,” she said finally. “It’s not about life on Earth or any one world. It’s about the transects and all the living things they weave together. The IU. That’s what the Ro threaten, because that’s the only power we have to resist whatever they want. They’ll attack the Sinzi if they must. They’ll try to isolate us.”

“Destroy the biospace,” Blake said. At Mac’s questioning look, he shook his head. “Something I read. Compared the species within the IU to a planetary biosphere, but on that unimaginable scale. The sum depends on the interaction of the parts. I thought it pretty simplistic at the time. Now?” He blew out his cheeks and glanced at Sing-li before gazing at her. “Geeze, Mac. What happened to studying salmon?”

“Don’t get me started,” she said unsteadily. The pilot was waving from the lev.
They were out of time.
“I’ll stay in touch. There’ll be com packets to and from Myriam. But . . . you should know the risk. The Ro don’t need the transects; the Dhryn do. If the Dhryn attack again, there are species who’ll lobby the IU to close their gates. If the Ro see our connection as too much of a threat, they could do it for us. In either case, I—” It didn’t help that her brothers were looking horrified. “If I can’t get home, I don’t want you to worry,” she fumbled. “I’m pretty good at getting along with aliens, these days. You’d be surprised. I’ll be okay.”

At that, she faltered and stopped, trying to memorize every detail of their dear faces. Her vision seemed to blur and she rubbed her eyes angrily.

“Solve this, Mackenzie,” her father said. “Solve this and come home.”

“You should have checked with me.”

“Why?” Mac asked, looking up at Sing-li from her seat in the skim. “Don’t you like boats?”

Emily laughed. Mudge squirmed. Tie grumbled something about tides and time under his breath, holding onto the stern rope as the little vessel bobbed up and down with the swells.

“I like boats. It’s where you plan to go in this one that bothers me.”

“You don’t know where we’re going,” Mac pointed out.

Sing-li planted an oversized left boot on the gunnels of the skim. “Exactly.”

Although tempted to see how long the agent could keep his balance and stay out of the water, given both skim and walkway were in motion, Mac relented and gave the seat next to hers a pat. “Bit of sightseeing. Hop in. This won’t take long.”

Tie expressed his opinion of their final passenger by letting go the rope and engaging the engine the instant most, but not all, of Sing-li was in the skim. The man was tossed into the seat, almost falling over it into Mudge’s lap. His teeth showed in a wide grin as he righted. “I like boats,” he assured Mac. “Better than Tie’s driving.”

The skim lifted to its cruising height, spending a few moments bouncing up and down as it echoed the choppy surface below. Emily let out a gleeful hoot. Tie sent the machine slewing about to follow the swells instead of crossing them and the ride smoothed immediately. Emily tried to persuade him to change back to the more exhilarating course, without success.

Mac envied Emily’s ability to relish the moment. Her own eyes still burned and her chest felt tight and sore. Given the option, she’d have curled up in a fetal position with a large cushion and whimpered herself to sleep.