Regeneration (Czerneda) (6 page)

Mac waited without moving. The rain softened to a mist she blinked from her eyelashes, tasted with her tongue. All the while, her heart hammered in her chest.
Gods, Emily . . .

“Then,” Emily said at last, “I found myself climbing rocks and sleeping in tents with the original woman of doubt. You questioned everything: yourself, your ideas, everyone else’s ideas—everything, it seemed, but me. Me, you absorbed into your life as if I’d always been there. What were you thinking?”

“What was there to think about?” Mac shrugged and threw another pebble.
Plonk.
“You’re good with salmon dynamics. A bit flighty, maybe, but I could put up with that.”

“Flighty?” Emily choked on the word. “I was trying to save the universe and you made me count fish!”

Her outrage was so thoroughly “Emily,” Mac had to smile. “You made me go dancing,” she countered.

“You made me sleep on rocks.”

“You got me thrown out of
Carly’s Pig and Whistle
. Twice.”

“Three times.” Emily reached out and tugged Mac’s hair. A pause that, for the first time in forever, felt comfortable. Then: “I didn’t know
They’d
attack Base, Mac. I swear I didn’t.
They
warned the disappearances along the Naralax Transect marked an imminent threat . . .
They
claimed the Dhryn had come from the Chasm, even as Kanaci’s group confirmed finding the Dhryn home world.
They
kept insisting the Dhryn—who seemed harmless enough—were connected. There was growing pressure to spy on any Dhryn in reach. A desperate need to somehow penetrate the Dhryn home world. It was confused, unclear. Urgent. That, above all.”

Words tumbled from Emily, more and more quickly. “When Brymn first mentioned your work, Otto and I, the others, we had to act. We knew it.
They
—always difficult to hold an idea—clearly Brymn’s interest in your work was something
They
wanted to understand. We had to learn about you; I was the right choice. Brymn’s coming to meet you couldn’t have been better timed. Don’t you see? I was already here. And once the IU and the Ministry forced your hand, Mac, everything fell into place. But—Mac, the plan was to lure you offworld in search of me, to draw you and Brymn to Haven, not chase you there.” Emily faltered. “I’d never have done anything to hurt you or anyone else. It should have worked—”

“Should have?” Something inside Mac snapped. “You made me believe you’d been kidnapped!” she said fiercely. “I had to go through your room, see the blood on the walls. I sent divers looking for your body! I had to call your sister, Emily. Do you hear me?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Sorry?” Mac’s harsh voice sounded strange to herself. “I had to find out from a stranger—a spy!—that you’d been—damn it, Emily, that you’d been lying to me from the start.”

“Mac—”

Abruptly spent, she rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Shut up, Em.”

Stiffly. “So that’s it? You’ve made up your mind, and nothing I can—”

“I understand,” Mac interrupted wearily.

A tiny gasp.
Just as well they couldn’t see each other’s faces.
“You . . . do?”

Mac nodded. “You got yourself into this by being who you are. And who you are . . . well, it’s pretty much who I thought you were. I get it.”
And she did, finally,
she thought with a relief that made her tremble. She’d been right to believe in Emily.

“You realize that made no sense whatsoever, Mackenzie Connor.”

It would with more beer.
Aloud: “Anyone else would have passed the mess to the authorities. Anyone else would have realized she couldn’t save the universe by herself.” Mac found herself close to smiling.
Odd, given the tears running down her cheeks.
“If you cared less and thought more, you wouldn’t be Emily.”

“Don’t you dare make me into some damn hero,” her friend snapped. “It was the worst mistake of my life.”

Typical Emily,
Mac thought.
Contrary.
“Your motives—”

“Motives mean nothing.
They
left me to die, so now I’m the noble victim to beings who fear
Them
.”
Plonk.
“But so far as others are concerned, I helped
Them
almost succeed in killing the Progenitors on Haven. You know who loves me for that.”
Plonk.
“Both factions at me nonstop, trying to suck me into their scheme of things . . . I’m sick of being told I had the right motives, Mac. I was arrogant. There’s no prize for that.”

Mac understood Emily’s frustration. There’d been no stopping the interrogations, the tests, the visits from anyone with clearance from the IU. How could there be? Emily Mamani was the only survivor. The rest of the Ro’s informants? They’d found their ruined bodies throughout Sol System—seven, so far. When the Ro had withdrawn their technology from the hulls of retreating Dhryn ships, opening them to vacuum, that same call had ripped the Ro’s devices from the flesh of their—
what did you call someone who’d risked their lives to become eyes and ears for the alien?

A hero,
Mac decided. “Motives count with me,” she assured Emily.

Plonk.
“Stubborn. And a fool.”

“I prefer to think of myself as internally consistent.” Mac squatted to find more pebbles, using her nonflesh hand. The local spiders were opinionated.

“You’re that,” Emily said quietly, a hint of a quiver in her voice.

Mac stood with her handful and tossed the largest.
Pluuush.
“How’s the ratio so far?” she asked.
In how much danger were they all?

“I’ve lost track.” A little too flippant.

Mac rolled the small, hard stones around in her palm. “You mean the idiot faction is growing.”

Plonk.
“You don’t let me call them names,” Emily protested mildly.

“That’s because you’d do it to their faces—or whatever,” Mac countered. “Things are tense enough.”

“They aren’t going to get better.”

“They will, Em. We’ll find evidence—proof that will convince even the idiots of the Ro’s real intentions.”
Evidence that couldn’t be reinterpreted to suit species’ self-interest,
Mac vowed to herself.

“It’s not as though I’ve been any help.”
SPLASH!
Emily must have tossed in a minor boulder.

“You could kill something that way,” Mac chided gently. This land was full of odd birds wandering where an outsider wouldn’t expect them.

“Haven’t you noticed? Life’s going cheap these days.”

The despair in the faceless voice was too familiar. Mac let the rest of her pebbles fall to the ground. “We really need more beer,” she concluded. Suiting action to words, she turned from the river and rolling pasture, squinting to pick out the path back to town from the shadows.

Emily took her arm, the grip tighter than natural.
Then again,
Mac thought,
the arm she gripped wasn’t natural either.
“I’ve tried to remember, Mac,” low, urgent. “I swear I have.”

“I know.” Mac covered the hand with her own. “We both heard Noad. Your mind may find a way. Or not. That’s the way of it, Em. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not that I don’t have any memories. I have too many. Being here, in the dark. This empty, open place. My pulse the loudest sound. It feels—” Emily fell silent. Mac held her breath, hoping for more, for anything, but Emily only sighed: “—familiar. A place I’ve never been before.” She gave a short, hard laugh. “Little good that does.”

“It’s a start. Now, about that beer.” Mac hesitated, squinting again. “Ah, Em?”

A tug on her hair. “This way.”

“Whatever you do, don’t use the washroom,” Mac advised, slipping into her seat in the booth. “Trust me.”

Emily grinned. “That bad?”

There was something terminally sticky on the soles of her sandals—clearly destined to be another set of footwear that would not survive a night out with Em. She abandoned them and tucked her bare feet underneath the curl of her legs on the bench. “Proves the Grimnoii were here first,” she commented. Cider in, much worse out.
You’d think,
Mac sighed to herself,
they’d learn not to drink the stuff.

Em wrinkled her nose. “Who’ll foot the bill for cleanup?”

“The consulate, I’m sure. The bartender doesn’t look worried.”

“Probably has his own toilet. What say we find out where?”

Mac laughed at the eager look on Em’s face. “Give him a couple of minutes first. You’ve got the poor man in a sweat.”

The other woman nibbled the fingertip of her glove, eyes bright with mischief. “Like you make your poor Nikolai sweat,
si
?”

Mac arched one eyebrow. “For me to know, Dr. Mamani, and you to hypothesize.”

“Bravo.”

The Feisty Weka
was larger and livelier than the
Nest
, although its tropical resort motif seemed a little embarrassed. The fake palms with their stuffed parrots were pushed into dark corners and the pineapple-printed table-cloths were covered with obscure local sayings in indelible ink Mac assumed were rude, given how much Emily had enjoyed them.

It was larger, livelier, and possessed not only these comfortable private booths, with soft benches, but an actual dance floor. Or Mac guessed that was the function of the area where people held their beer in their hands rather than sitting down at a table. Emily’s face had lit up like one of the lanterns at the doorway. They’d finally found where all those not tending sheep were spending Saturday night.

Mac studied a cartoonish drawing of a small bird running off with a bag, wondering why it was considered funny.

“Can I interest you lovely ladies in a dance?” The voice was deep and smooth.

And male.
Mac looked up and scowled; Emily beamed. Mac’s “No, thanks” was overruled by Em’s warm: “And here I thought I’d sit here all night.”

“Not in Southland. We take care of our guests.”

There was a friendly smile to match the voice. A perfectly normal Human male body to match the smile.
Okay,
Mac admitted, a tall, blond, ruggedly handsome Human male, wearing, of course, some kind of ruggedly handsome clothing that emphasized all the right bits.

Mac scowled harder.

“Em,” she hissed under her breath. “Don’t you dare.”

Tossing aside her shawl, Emily smiled as she stood, hips already finding the beat of the music Mac only now noticed coming from the dance floor. Her creamy bare shoulders tipped into the arm-covering black silk of her gloves, an exotic look for a New Zealand pub; Mr. Ruggedly’s eyes were about to pop. “C’mon, Mac,” Emily said, leaning over the table to smile at her. “You know you’re thinking what I’m thinking. Someone this good-looking must have a friend.”

Mac muttered something hopefully incomprehensible under her breath. “Broken sandals,” she confessed brightly, trying for a rueful smile.
Technically also permanently stuck to the floor, but details weren’t essential.
“You go. I’ll order another round.”

They abandoned her without argument, as she’d expected. Once Emily and Mr. Ruggedly were safely absorbed into the mass pretending to dance, Mac let her forehead drop to the table, hiding a yawn.
She usually caught a nap during their nights out.
She turned her head to press her cheek against her glass, one eye peering through amber at the couple. Emily was smiling. He must be a good dancer. Whoever he was.

The pattern of so many Saturday nights.
Why didn’t it feel the same?

Mac watched a bubble struggle toward the surface and knew why. It wasn’t learning about Emily’s sources, or her poor choice in obsessions.

This time, she was the one with a secret.

Why was the Origins Team still on Earth? Because she’d refused to let them leave with the rest. Those in charge wanted Emily close to medical treatment and protection. Then there was the ever-hopeful wait for Emily’s brain to process anything useful about no-space and the Ro.

Something plaid got in the way of the dance floor, and Mac waved impatiently until it was gone. She spotted Emily in the arms of Mr. Ruggedly and relaxed.

Mac yawned again and sat up, wondering if it was time to order coffee instead.

She smiled at a familiar laugh, loud and abandoned.
Points to Mr. Ruggedly.

It wasn’t only the attractive stranger willing to tango to anything. As realization hit, Mac’s smile faded. It was this thoroughly Human place bringing the old Emily back, from the stale air to the seats worn comfortable by the personal attention of generations of posteriors shaped like theirs.
Okay, some several sizes larger,
Mac corrected absently, shifting on the lumpy bench. Emily had needed—

“Watchit!”

The outcry was a signal for pandemonium to break loose. Mac snatched her beer glass to safety as a body, in plaid, landed on the table in front of her. She blinked as Mr. Plaid scrambled to his feet, teeth bared in a wild grin and shouting something highly improbable about someone else’s mother. He vanished into the mêlée.