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  “Mac.”

  “Yes, Brymn Las?”

  “We’ve come a long way together, you and I.”

  Mac smiled down at the Dhryn. “There’s an understatement. I don’t even know where this planet is.”

  “I meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” There were no words. Instead, Mac put her fingers to her lips and blew Brymn a kiss. “I’ll be right back with those scissors.”

  The camp was alive with lights, bobbing in hands, hung from poles. And people, dozens more than Mac remembered, busy transferring gear to and from a bank of skims parked in the dust. She kept to the shadows, not deliberately, but from a sudden shyness. She wanted to see him first.

  No, she wanted scissors.

  Mac spotted the medic standing with two others and walked over to him. “Excuse me,” she said brightly, having to look up. “I need a pair of scissors. For bandages.”

  The other two were in uniform, beneath sensible coats. Seeing those, Mac felt the bite of the night air for the first time and wrapped her arms around her middle.

  The medic, presumably in the midst of arranging transport for his patients, spared her hardly a glance as he produced a microscalpel from a pocket. “This do?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  They resumed their discussion. As Mac headed back to the shelter, she flipped on the ’scalpel to check its power supply. The tiny blade formed in the air with a reassuring gleam.

  “Mac!”

  The shout gave her barely time to turn the ’scalpel off again before she was being crushed while a voice said desperate, incoherent things into her hair.

  Rather nice things.

  The universe could stop right here, Mac decided, putting her arms as far around Nikolai Trojanowski as their length, and his gear, permitted.

  It didn’t, of course. A shaky breath later and they were apart, Nik doing his best to look official and not flustered; Mac grinning like a fool. After a second, he relaxed and smiled down at her, his hazel eyes taking green sparks from the lights.

  “You’re alive,” she said, finding it necessary to say the words.

  “So are you. And it’s over, Mac. We did it,” he told her. “Drove away the Ro.”

  The name sent a shock through her body. Mac managed to ask: “What about the Dhryn?”

  “Don’t worry. The IU made sure all of their colonies received the equipment to disrupt the no-space fields. The Ro’s advantage is gone. It should be a case of alerting Union members what to look for—what’s wrong?”

  “Maybe nothing.” Mac looked up at Nik, drinking in the sight of him, wanting to believe in safety, then had to say it. “Maybe everything. Emily told me—”

  The first scream hit the air.

  - Portent -

  THE FIRST drop fell.

  It was the purpose for being.

  Green and glistening, it landed on the blanket, etching through the woven fibers as fire would consume kindling.

  Another followed. Another.

  That which is Dhryn must survive.

  Another, reaching the bandages beneath, eating through those to find flesh.

  Another. Another.

  The flesh responded, instinct fighting drug. The scream should have had meaning.

  That which is Dhryn must find the path for the future.

  More drops, until they began to collect in the dust.

  And the mouths could drink.

  26

  REVELATION AND REGRET

  BECAUSE she didn’t need to understand, grab weapons, or bark orders, Mac was first to the shelter. She tore back the flap that protected the occupants from the dust and staggered inside.

  The screaming had stopped.

  The lights were gone.

  “Brymn?”

  Air stirred wisps of her hair. “Goooooo,” it said. “Gooooo.”

  Gooseflesh rose along Mac’s skin. She felt the flap open behind her and reached to stop Nik, knowing beyond doubt it would be him.

  “Brymn. It’s Mac.”

  “Goooo—ooo.”

  That voice alone could give nightmares. No wonder they’d inherited legends of ghouls and monsters from the Chasm. Mac wrinkled her nose, smelling rot. “There are two people here,” she whispered to the man waiting by her shoulder. “We need light to find them.” When Nik hesitated, she pushed. “He won’t hurt me.”

  He won’t want to hurt me, Mac told herself, trying to keep very still. She heard Nik ordering people away, calling for a light. Closer, she heard rain and pictured Brymn curled in agony, bleeding from his wounds. She could picture it, but something kept her at the entry.

  A hand touched her arm, followed it down to put a light in her hand. Mac aimed it at the dust, then switched it on.

  On Brymn. What had been Brymn. He—it—was lying on the floor, arms ending in a pool of bright green, a pool disturbed by drips from . . . Mac let the light trace the drips upward . . .

  . . . from what had been a woman. Now, ribs dissolved as she stared, the mass turning into droplets as Mac tried to breathe, the droplets collecting in the pool, the pool where Brymn—drank.

  The light had followed her gaze. The metamorphosis was complete. His hands had become mouths. His shoulders and sides had grown membranes that shimmered. His organs shone through his skin, including the stomach where green gathered with each sucking sound. A pufferfish Dhryn, Mac thought inanely, too terrified to move, unable to believe she’d seen this form before without screaming.

  She had to help Nik. He’d yanked the other casualty from his bed, and was now dragging him to the door flap without care for anything but speed.

  But Mac couldn’t move. She watched as yellow mucus trailed from Brymn’s nostrils. Grief? His eyes, lidless, their orbs sinking below the skin as she watched, looked at her. Knew her—even as the light of intelligence flickered and died. Still, his real mouth trembled around a word: “Promisssse.”

  “I know, Lamisah,” Mac said, activating the ’scalpel even as she threw it into one sinking eye.

  What had been Brymn filled its body with a single breath and launched itself toward the ceiling, green drops spraying outward from the mouths. One hit Mac’s hand as she covered her face. She screamed. Another. Somehow she remained conscious as Nik grabbed her around the waist to carry her outside.

  Behind them, she could hear weapons fire and closed her eyes, sobbing with more than pain.

  27

  REUNION AND RENEWAL

  THE LAST salmon run was over, the harvesting fleets were docked, the students had gone home. Mac leaned her shoulders against the damp outer wall of Pod Three and took in the unusual neatness of cleared walkways and laundry-free terraces. “Looks like the start of winter,” she told Kammie.

  “That it does. Same old thing, every year.”

  Mac glanced at the chemist. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Do what?” A look of innocence in the almond-shaped eyes.

  “Treat me like I’ll break.”

  Kammie tried to look outraged and failed. “That obvious?” she relented, then smiled. “Must be the hair. Not used to it yet.”

  “Or this?” Mac held up her left hand and wriggled the fingers. The prosthesis was excellent work. The Ministry looked after its own, Nik had told her. Mind you, she’d upset the warship’s surgeon by insisting on a ceramic finish rather than regrown skin. The resulting pseudo-flesh tone had a faintly blue tint in sunlight.

  She could stir acid with the fingers.

  “The new hand?” Kammie shook her head. She stared out at the ocean for a long moment, then said softly: “If you must know, it’s your eyes, Mac. Since you got back, you always seem to be looking somewhere else.”

  The Ministry had maintained the fiction that she’d been staying at the Interspecies Union Consulate, learning Dhryn, hunting for Emily. The loss of her hand and wrist? A skim accident on the way home, adding to the delay. Mac was reasonably sure Kammie and some of the others—not to mention Charles Mudge III—
suspected this wasn’t the whole story. She hoped they’d never need to know it.

  She almost wished she didn’t. Almost.

  “Elsewhere?” Mac managed to keep it light. “Let’s say I’ve discovered an interest in extraterrestrial biology. I may do a sabbatical offworld, one of these years.”

  That earned a laugh from Kammie. “You? This I have to see. Seung—” She faltered, then went on: “He’d have liked to hear you say that.”

  Mac nodded. The casualty list had been hard reading. Nik had given it to her while she was receiving her new hand, since everyone at home believed she knew and had grieved. Five dead, including Dr. Seung and the irascible Denise Pillsworthy. Her grieving had only begun. Still, the alarm had saved far more than she’d dared hope, even in Pod Six.

  Mac tossed her head. “Let’s go over the reconstruction estimates. I want to be sure you didn’t grow an extra lab while I was gone.”

  “Well, I didn’t. But that’s not a bad idea. You do realize this is the optimal time in which to rethink some of the space allocations within the pods . . .”

  Mac let Kammie’s peaceful voice wash over her, the way the waves were washing over the bleached logs and stone of the shore. She drew in the rich, moist air and held it inside her lungs, filling her eyes with ocean, forest, cloud, and mountain.

  The Dhryn had vanished as effectively as the Ro, their colonies as empty as the rocky remnant of their former home world, a mystery on every level. How had they reached the planets they’d attacked without being seen? Why? The Ministry had Emily’s logs, experts presumably going over every entry. She might have a turn—but only if they ran into messages that could make better sense to a friend. Need-to-know, they’d told her, before sending her home. They did reveal that the IU had sent urgent messages to all its members about the Dhryn “feeder form,” as they now called the pufferfish transformation.

  And that the foremost archaeologists from fifty species had been rushed to the Chasm. Brymn would have been pleased, she thought, cautious around what felt like an open wound.

  Nik? Mac could close her eyes here and now and see his face. He’d been there, when she’d awakened to find her arm gone; he’d stayed until ordered away. Had looked at her in a way that still warmed her, before going where he had to go.

  It might have been respect and sympathy. It might have been something more. She’d have to ask Emily’s advice.

  When, not if, she found her again.

  “Forgiven,” Mac whispered.

  “Pardon? Mac, you haven’t heard a word I said. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Mac focused on Kammie’s concerned face and smiled. “Fine. I’m fine. You go ahead and I’ll meet you in your office.”

  “And where will you be?”

  Where? Everything and everyone Mackenzie Connor cared about, on Earth and off, was at terrible risk, including the Dhryn. But, abruptly, Mac could let it all go for now, leave the worry to others. For now.

  Salt spray kissed her lips. A gull complained overhead, then tipped its wings to slip straight down to the water, snapping level above the waves at the last possible instant with what could only be called a laugh. In the distance, a whale breached, conquering the boundary of ocean and air with a casual toss of its mammoth head.

  She was home.

  “I think I’ll call my dad.”

  Read on for a preview of

  SPECIES IMPERATIVE:

  MIGRATION

  ENCOUNTER

  THERE WERE tales told of ships which appeared in the right place at the right time. Heroes were made of such tales. Legends were born.

  It was yet to be determined if the anticipated arrival of the dreadnaught Guan Yu into the definitely unanticipated chaos that was the Eeling System qualified.

  “Report!”

  On that command, displays winked into life in the air in front of Captain Frank Wu: feeds from navigation, sensors, ship status. The first two pulsed with warnings in red, vivid yellow, and mauve—matched to the circulatory fluids of the Guan Yu’s trispecies crew. Threat should be personal.

  “What in the—” Wu leaned forward and stabbed a finger into the sensor display to send its image of the planet they were approaching to the center of the bridge, enlarged to its maximum size. “The Dhryn!”

  “Mesu crawlik sa!”

  No need to understand gutter-Norwelliian to grasp the essence of that outburst from the mouth cavity of his first officer, Naseet Melosh. Wu shifted back in his chair, instinctively farther from the image, fingers seeking the elegant goatee on his chin out of habit. Nice if swearing would help.

  The bridge of the Guan Yu grew unnervingly silent as everyone, Human, Norwellii, and Scassian alike, stared at the sight now hovering in front of them all.

  None of them had seen a planet being digested before.

  Two of Ascendis’ land masses were visible from their approach lane. Both had been verdant green, dappled with the blue of waterways and the golden bronze of the Eelings’ compact, tidy cities. Now, huge swathes of pale dirty brown cut along perfect lines, as though the world was being skinned by invisible knives. The lines grew even as they watched in horror, crisscrossing one another, growing in width as well as length, taking everything.

  The cities? They were obscured by dark clouds, as if set ablaze.

  Perversely, the sky itself sparkled, as if its day was filled with stars. The number of attacking ships that implied . . . Wu swallowed. “Tea, please,” he ordered quietly, then “Amsu, are there any more in the system?”

  His scan-tech started at her name and bent over her console. “No. No, sir. No other Dhryn. There’s scattered Eeling traffic heading—there’s no consistent direction, sir.”

  “Yes, there is consistency,” Melosh disagreed. “They go away.” His voice, a soft, well-modulated soprano, was always something of a shock, coming as it did from deep within that gaping triangular pit lined with writhing orange fibroids. “They flee in any direction left to them. These are not transect-capable vessels; the Eelings have no refuge within this system. I must postulate hysteria.”

  “Understandable. Communications, I want every scrap of sensor data transmitted to Earthgov. Start sending relay drones back through the transect. Two minute intervals. Keep sending until I tell you to stop or you run out.” Wu didn’t wait for the curt affirmative. “Anyone come through the transect after us?” He accepted the fine china cup from the ensign. Out of habit, he sniffed the steam rising from the dark liquid. Odd. He couldn’t smell anything. Still, the small habit comforted.

  “No, sir. Not yet. But I can’t raise the Eelings’ transect station to confirm and—” the scan-tech waved her display to replace the planet “—it’s a mess out here. Damaged ships is the least of it. There’s no organized defense.”

  “There’s us,” Wu corrected.

  “Us? We came here for an engine refit,” Melosh reminded his commander. “We off-loaded our live armaments. We cannot close the transect from only one end. We cannot save whatever remains of this world. We can run, but the Dhryn could follow.”

  Wu turned and met his own reflections in each of the Norwelliian’s immense emerald pupils. Not surprisingly, he looked grim in all three.

  Timing, Wu knew full well, didn’t make heroes. Resolve did.

  “You’re right, Melosh. There’s only one way we can hope to stop the Dhryn and that’s to catch them on the planet surface. Get the crew to the escape pods.” Putting his tea aside, Wu stood, straightening his uniform jacket with a discreet tug. “But first, find me the weakest spot on this planet’s crust.”

  The mighty Guan Yu spat out her children, all nestled in their tiny ships, then sprang in silence toward the twitching corpse of a world. Her captain sat quietly at the pilot’s console, tea back in hand, ready to do what had to be done.

  No hero. Not he.

  A chance, nothing more.

  He’d take it.

  Then, the scope of the nightmare made itself known as the Dhryn’s Progenit
or Ship came into view from around the far side of the planet, catching the sunlight like a rising crescent moon. Glitter rained down from her to the surface, still more returned, until it seemed to any watching that the mammoth Dhryn vessel didn’t orbit on her own but instead floated atop a silver fountain of inconceivable size.

  Then specks from that fountain swerved, heading straight toward the Guan Yu. Hundreds. Thousands.

  He had no means to destroy her.

  Wu’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he punched a control. The Guan Yu hurtled downward even faster than before, seeking the heart of what had been the home of the Eelings.

  He could only make the Dhryn pay.

  The pods went first, each disappearing within a cloud of smaller, faster ships. Swarmed. Consumed.

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  Wu tossed aside his teacup and secured the neck fastenings of his helmet. Lights flashed and dimmed, flashed and dimmed. The Guan Yu lost atmospheric integrity. One or more seals had failed.

  Dissolved.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take you with me,” Wu promised his unwanted guests.

  As the first feeder, clothed in silver, drifted down her corridors, the Guan Yu screamed her way through the atmosphere and stabbed into the weakest part of Ascendis’ crust. Shock waves rippled across the continent, setting off quakes and volcanoes.

  The air itself burned.

  The great journey must continue until home is attained. That which is Dhryn has remembered. All that is Dhryn shares that goal.

  There will be danger.

  There will be hardship.

  It is the way of the journey, that most will not reach its end.

  So long as that which is Dhryn achieves safe haven, all sacrifice is joy.

  “I told you to go, lamisah. Why didn’t you listen?” A soft, reasonable voice. The voice of friendship, of trust.