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  The buzzing of voices started up again as the students spotted the food trolleys being wheeled from the back. The buzz rose to near-deafening levels. An extreme reaction to pizza, even from this group. Mac squinted, trying to make out what was coming.

  “ ‘My treat.’ Is that the expression?” One of the advantages of multiple limbs was apparent as Brymn gestured grandly in all directions at once. “There was to be a grand supper at the Consulate for me tonight. I insisted the food be sent here instead. This is acceptable?”

  From the exclamations of rapture spreading across the gallery, Mac had no doubts at all. “Thank you. Although I hope this won’t cause you any difficulties.” She wondered what a formal meal would be like at the IU Consulate and was ashamed when the first image in her mind was feeding time at an old-fashioned zoo.

  “Difficulties, no.” The Dhryn tilted forward conspiratorially. “But I suspect the consular staff would like to serve me for supper,” he told her in what was presumably his notion of a whisper.

  She almost smiled. “Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen.”

  “Indeed,” Brymn agreed, leaning upright again. “I imagine there could be considerable discomfort involved!”

  Mac chewed her lower lip for a second, then decided. She turned in her chair to more directly face the alien. “I want to apologize for—for—”

  “What? Not letting me bully you?” His small lips could fashion quite an infectious grin. “Dear Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor, I’m lucky you don’t work for the Consulate, or there’d be no treat on these tables tonight!”

  “Why, you—” Mac shook her head, then found herself smiling. “You had me worried, I’ll admit.”

  Brymn picked up two water-filled glasses, passing one to her. “To mutual understanding,” he offered, lifting his glass to hers.

  “Psst.” Emily’s breath tickled her ear. “Check out Seung and the rest of the Preds.”

  As she sipped her water, Mac let her eyes drift across the tables. They’d doubtless been arranged in tidy rows before the students arrived and “modified” their environment. Now, they were clearly in clusters by research preference.

  The Harvs were near the back wall. She was slipping, Mac told herself, not to have noticed those who should have been in the kitchen to help prepare food were sitting with the rest. Missies, catch-all slang for other, miscellaneous topics, filled the bulk of the room, subclustered by interests in benthic organisms, competition, long-term climatic trends, water or soil chemistry, and so on.

  The Preds had claimed a group of five tables to the far right of Dhryn’s table, aligned so they could run for the nearest exit if whales sang into their hydrophones. They were busy tossing buns to—or at—the occupants of one of their tables.

  Clad in a black T-shirt, likely a loan from a student, and hefting a bun himself, Nikolai Trojanowski had blended remarkably well. Mac appreciated the effectiveness of Emily’s radar for the new and male. She took another sip as she studied him. At least he had his glasses.

  Coincidence, perhaps, that Trojanowski chose that moment to glance at the head table and catch her eyes. From this distance, Mac couldn’t make out his expression. Not that she wanted to. Her face and neck flooded with heat as she remembered everything from the prickly softness of his suit under her hands to the splash when the poor man hit the water.

  Make an impression indeed.

  “What a wonderful color change,” Brymn commented. It begged the question of whether his vision included the infrared or the color red, Mac thought glumly.

  “She’s very good at it,” Emily said, leaning over the table to speak past Mac as if that worthy wasn’t there and glaring.

  “Is there significance? A hormonal state, perhaps?”

  Mac aimed a kick under the table at her oh-so-amused friend, then decided against further physical reactions for the time being. “I’m a little warm,” she assured Brymn, then went on quickly. “What’s your preferred ambient temperature?”

  “This is comfortable. A warmer and drier climate would be agreeable. Not that I’m complaining, but does it always rain here?”

  The boisterous agreement from all within earshot seemed to startle the Dhryn, but he recovered quickly and waved his upper arms again in what Mac took for pleased acknowledgment. She edged her chair closer to Emily’s, in case the Dhryn needed more room for such self-expression.

  “Do you not have technology to modify your climate?” Brymn asked. “If this isn’t what you prefer yourselves, wouldn’t that be the obvious course? It is the first installation on any Dhryn colony.”

  “We do. There are control mechanisms in place to reduce the intensity of storms that threaten lives, or to end excessive drought in agricultural zones. Otherwise? No, we leave Earth pretty much as she is and complain about the weather.” The trolley for the head table was now behind Mac. She sniffed appreciatively, leaning to one side to let the waiter-of-the-day, a skim-tech named Turner-Jay, deposit a steaming plate in front of her. Mac’s eyes widened. If this was the appetizer, they were in for a five-star feast. Her stomach rumbled.

  “Now you and I can leave.” Brymn’s low voice was almost lost beneath the clatter of knife and fork. She hadn’t known he could speak so quietly.

  Mac swallowed the saliva filling her mouth and looked at the Dhryn in disbelief. “Leave?” she echoed.

  “A good time to speak privately is when others feast, is it not?”

  She had to concede no one appeared interested in them at the moment. Even Trojanowski had his head bowed over Brymn’s “treat.” Which now seemed something other than generosity.

  “As you wish.” Mac folded her napkin beside her plate and inhaled the rich aroma one last time before standing.

  The rain had stopped. Not only that, but the clouds were lifting, revealing foothills and shoreline, a hint of gray-mauve cliff, and, to the southwest, a glow where the sun would kiss the sea in another two hours. A westerly breeze chuckled through the pods and walkways, teased Emily’s braidwork, then left to stir up waves in the distant heart of the inlet. Mac drew the smell of sea and forest into her nostrils, savored it, then promised her stomach something more substantial later.

  There could be leftovers.

  She led the way down the ramp from Pod Three to the walkway, glancing back to be sure her otherworldly companion could negotiate passages designed for Humans and their gear. Brymn moved like someone cautious of his balance, wise given the tendency of the walkway to rock from side to side under his greater mass. He could also have been unhappy about the ocean underfoot.

  A valid conclusion, given his next request. “Could we go onshore, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor?”

  “Call me Mac.”

  “Amisch a nai!”

  Whatever the words meant, it wasn’t something happy. Mac stopped and turned, her fingers wrapping around the rope rail. She narrowed her eyes as she stared up at him. “You aren’t planning to make that abominable noise again, I hope.”

  The Dhryn was holding onto the ropes on both sides, using all six available hands. His seventh limb remained tucked under a red band. Just as well, Mac thought, remembering its sharp digits. Not helpful for rope grabbing, that was certain. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Should we go back inside?” Her stomach growled eagerly.

  “I am well, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor. I will be even better if we can hold our discussion somewhere more private. And onshore.”

  Mac weighed the pleading note in the Dhryn’s voice and the message in her pocket against the rules she’d have to bend, then shrugged. It shouldn’t be a problem. She pointed down the walkway to Pod One. “Land’s that way.”

  Norcoast’s floating pods, like most of the homesteads, harvester processing plants, and other buildings along the coast, were kept upright and in place with anchors; ballast kept them submerged at the desired depth. In winter, Pods Three and Six remained as they were, protected from ice floes and storm winds by inflated
barriers. Similar barriers, placed beneath, were used to lift the other pods free of the water until spring. The experience tended to startle those students who’d lingered through late fall to write up their theses and hadn’t paid attention to the move-out date in their calendars. Someone always had to be plucked from a rooftop.

  The complex of pods was linked to shore by one walkway, also removed from service during the winter months. Mudge, in his persona as Oversight Committee, had tried and failed to prevent a physical connection to the lands of the Wilderness Trust.

  But it was access that could, and would, be rescinded at the first sign of complacency. All of the protective restrictions could be summed up by one phrase: no avoidable contact. Any unavoidable contact, such as the walkway holdfasts on shore, had been carefully planned for minimum impact and thoroughly documented so future researchers would be aware of all perturbations made to the area.

  Which had led to some unique features in design and construction.

  “It’s perfectly safe,” Mac assured the Dhryn when they reached the transition between the interpod walkway and the segment leading toward land. The former was built from slats of mem-wood, grown so that each piece would fit into the next like a giant puzzle and could be dismantled as easily. The shoreward walkway was something else again.

  Seeing it, Brymn came to an abrupt halt, gripping the rope rails again. “Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor,” he rumbled somewhat breathlessly. “I do not wish to doubt, but are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. We roll heavy equipment along it all the time.” Mac stepped forward, trusting the anxious Dhryn would follow.

  Trust was essential. To the eye, there was nothing between her feet and the white hiss of incoming surf four meters below. At least it wasn’t high tide and the water almost underfoot. She did a little shuffle step, the effect as though she danced in air. “There’s a bit of spring, but it’s solid,” she assured the Dhryn. The walkway material was a membrane, completely permeable to visible light, radiation, even water droplets—another way of reducing the impact of human structures on the shore’s inhabitants. Mac could taste the spray on her lips and wondered what Dhryn thought of salt.

  There was a railing of the same substance, continuing from the rope but invisible. Brymn found it by virtue of moving his hands forward two at a time, so he never had to completely let go. First one leg and footpod gingerly tested the walkway, then the other. “This is quite—remarkable,” he said, his small mouth pursed as if in concentration.

  Then he released his grips and sprang up into the air, dropping down with a bass “Whoop!” to meet the flex of the walkway, for all the world like her nephew on his backyard trampoline. Arms flailing for balance as the walkway pitched, Mac managed to find and grab the rail herself. “What—?”

  The Dhryn’s massive legs bent backward at a hitherto unseen joint, absorbing the energy from the walkway so it settled. “My apologies, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.” His eyes blinked slightly out of sync. “We have a symlis—a fable—of individuals who jump on air. I couldn’t resist.”

  Play? Another congruence between their species? Mac filed the possibility away for later examination. Much later. “I take it you don’t have a problem with heights.”

  Three arms waved in an extravagant gesture that, in a Human, dared her to do her worst.

  The walkway carried them up and over the shore as it rose from the sea, the dark wet stone beneath giving way to a confusion of pale tree bones laced with drying strings of kelp. Crabs scuttled along, seeking shadows. A

  real gull, prospecting among the rocks, tilted its head to center one bright black eye on the spectacle of Human and Dhryn passing overhead, walking on air. That much interference couldn’t be helped, although a low-level repeller kept flying things from collision or perch on the walkway itself. Or web-building, Mac mused, rather fond of the strands that glistened throughout the rest of the complex, beaded with crystal after every fog.

  An artificial web faced them now, strung between the holdfasts as a token barrier. The tiggers pretending to roost in the staggered rows of forest ahead were the true guardians of the place, active night and day, programmed to accost anyone whose profile didn’t appear in their data files. Given their lack of attention to Brymn, Mac concluded Tie had taken care of that detail. Or Trojanowski.

  She pressed her palm over the lock on the right-hand pillar, then keyed in this season’s code, waiting for Norcoast to send confirmation. The web folded itself away, a course of lights from beneath their feet briefly illuminating the choices currently in place: a path leading along the inner arm of the inlet, one rising to the treetops ahead, and a third swinging high over the rock to the left. The first two flashed red, indicating they had been reserved for specific projects. The last shone green.

  In spite of everything, Mac grinned as she clawed wisps of hair from her eyes. She wasn’t sure how much privacy Brymn wanted for their conversation, but she’d take any excuse to climb the inlet’s outreaching arm. It had been two seasons since this particular area had been accessible. “Follow me.”

  The walkway was more rigid here, taut and formed into a series of steps. Each rise courteously drew itself in the air with a flash of green along its edge as they approached. Mac, curious, stood aside at the second step to let the alien take the lead. He didn’t hesitate, lifting his ponderous foot the required amount to clear the illuminated line. So. The Dhryn’s large eyes perceived at least that color.

  Mac held tight to the railing as the walkway took them beyond the protection of the inlet’s stone arm and they met the westerly wind straight off the Pacific. In the fall, those winds would shift east and intensify into storms. They were strong enough now. Her coveralls flapped against her skin and Emily’s braid gave up the fight for dignity. Mac grabbed her suddenly free hair with one hand, turning to check on the Dhryn.

  His eyes were no longer golden yellow and black. A membrane, perhaps an inner eyelid, now covered each. The result was as if his eyes had been plucked from their sockets and replaced with gleaming blue marbles. His silks, plastered tightly to his body by the wind, showed no signs of coming loose. Mac was mildly disappointed, having wondered what might be revealed of the alien’s anatomy. Brymn waved her on.

  Mac nodded, not bothering to talk over the rustling of her clothes, and led the way.

  The outer side of the inlet’s protective arm boasted a different shoreline, one that plunged like a knife into the ocean. Immense fingers of kelp, knuckled by shiny round bladders, stroked the waves into a dark, smooth rhythm. Salmon would be slipping through that underwater forest, drawn by the tastes of home flooding mouth and nostrils.

  Mac could smell them, over the tang of cedar and fir.

  The tide was on the move, too, its powerful eddies fighting the wind and each other with a roar and crash. Mac squinted, hoping to spot the sharp upright fins of orcas in the distance and seeing only the deceptive edges of waves to the horizon. She should have brought her ’scope.

  They weren’t here to sightsee. “Let me go first here,” she advised Brymn, making sure the alien paid attention. He seemed as caught by the view as she’d been.

  Four steps down, one after the other limned in black as the walkway compensated for the light now striking low and from the west. At the bottom, a mem-wood platform waited on pylons, complete with built-in bench and rails. From the way the wind stopped when they reached it, it must be surrounded by a curtain of the membrane that formed the walkway.

  Probably Svehla’s work. The joke around Base was that the talented carpenter would build everyone’s retirement cottage instead of ever retiring himself. Mac explored the small area, then ran her hand along the rail on the ocean side. Regular holes marked where Preds had fastened their recorders and ’scopes.

  Brymn came up beside her. She forced herself to stay still, even though his bulk intimidated this close. “Private enough?” she asked.

  “Private and most spectacular. Thank you,
Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

  She gritted her teeth. His continued use of her full name was becoming supremely annoying. At least he didn’t have a discernible body odor, she reminded herself, trying to look on the bright side. She turned away from the Pacific to stare up at her visitor, noticing that his eyes had returned to normal. “Now. Why me?”

  The Dhryn pursed his small mouth. “Sit. Please.”

  Mac walked over to the bench and obeyed, but hugged her knees to her chest so she could rest her arms on top. “I’m sitting.”

  He faced her, then slowly settled his backside to the platform by bending his legs at their uppermost joint. His two lower hands pressed against the wood, arms stiffening to form a secure tripod. “Ah. I’ve wanted to do this all day.”

  “You didn’t have to use a chair,” Mac noted dryly.

  A cavalier wave. “ ‘When visiting a species . . .’ You know the rest of the expression, I’m sure. Still, it does the body good.” Before Mac could attempt to swing the conversation back to the note in her pocket, Brymn grew serious, his voice lowering in depth until she felt it through the bench. “Evolutionary units.”

  Mac blinked. “Pardon?”

  Brymn looked worried. “You are the Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor who has published extensively on that topic, are you not? There can’t be two Humans with that same name, surely.”

  “Yes. To being the one, that is.” Mac frowned. “I thought you were investigating the disappearances.”

  “I am. You’ve read the report, I see.”

  An eagle skimmed past them, the head and spine of a salmon locked in its talons. Mac suddenly empathized with the fish. “Forgive me, Brymn, if I seem confused, but I don’t see any connection between my research and these missing people. Tragic as those losses are,” she added hastily.

  “People?” he echoed, eye ridges rumpling. “Far more than people are missing, Mackenzie Winifred Eliz—”

  Enough was enough! “Please. Stop doing that. Humans rarely use their complete names. Never in conversation. Call me Mac.” As Brymn opened his mouth again, Mac pointed at him and shook her finger warningly. “Mac.”