by Sarah Zettel
Now, though, Scholar Arron's voice came out of the station.
“Lareet? Lareet?” Inside her mind, she could see his smooth brow furrowing with exasperation. “I know you have to be there somewhere. How long are you going to make me keep talking to myself, here?”
She crossed the deck in half a dozen steps. Umat felt her coming and moved back to make room for her in the crescent of sisters who glowered over the station as if it were a bad omen.
“Lareet, answer me. Umat? You must know where she is. Will you go get her please? We've got… I've got something you need to hear. It's important. Please, answer me.”
Umat met Lareet's eyes, and dipped her ears.
The skin between Lareet's shoulders bunched up. She reached out and touched the key the coders said meant “reply.”
“I'm here, Scholar Arron,” she said.
Arron's familiar sigh of relief drifted out of the station. “I'm grateful to Mother Night. Listen, Lareet, have you got any cameras working on that thing yet?”
Lareet flicked an ear to Umat, who turned to the bridge commander. She dipped her ears. “Yes, we have,” said Lareet.
“Good.” Arron did not sound very certain. What is happening? The last of the warmth from the hangar left Lareet's blood.
Arron went on. “Set one Of the command center cameras to…” He paused, and she could hear a faint voice in the background. “Coordinates 16,24,16.”
“Do it,” said to the ovrth at the navigation station.
A section of the central table lit up. In comical unity, commanders turned from the station to the table. The screen showed a grid, the stars and one large, luminous globe right in the center of the view.
“What is that?” breathed Umat.
“That's probably us,” answered Arron. “I'm aboard the city-ship Manhattan with Commander Keale and Captain Esmaraude. We're on an interception course with your ship.”
The skin crawled across the back of Lareet's neck. Her toes dug at the metal deck. “Arron, what are you doing?”
Arron hesitated. “I'm helping to stop you, Lareet. If you don't break this off, we're going to run the Manhattan straight into the Ur. You'll all die, and so will we.”
The command center was so silent Lareet could hear her own heart beat like thunder. “Scholar Arron, you can't mean it.”
“Dayisen Lareet, I do. It's all over. The only question is whether we live through it or not.”
Umat left her side and strode over to the sister at the navigation post She whispered in her ears. Lareet barely heard the answer. “Dayisen Umat, that will take at least a half hour to code.”
“Do it” breathed Umat. She straightened up and lifted her voice. “Scholar Arron, I don't believe you would do this to us.”
“It's not me doing it Umat.” Lareet knew from the voice that Arron had probably curled his hands into fists to signal his frustration. They were amazingly expressive, those Human hands. “I came along to try to save your lives, our lives.”
The sister at the navigation post began to pant. She covered her mouth to muffle it Umat laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Scholar Arron, is this your revenge for our actions at port?”
“You betrayed me,” he said with a surprising simplicity. “You took lives with your actions. I am bleeding inside for what happened.” The pain was clear in his voice, even for a Human. Lareet glanced around and saw a number of sisters with skin rippling in response. “But you've been betrayed, too,” said Arron.
“What?” The word burst out of Lareet.
Arron took one of the deep breaths that seemed to steady him. “The Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead have known about your plan for at least a year. They set things up so Bioverse would take care of you for them. It's worked beautifully, don't you think?”
Murmurs and panting flicked Lareet's ears in a dozen different directions. She felt the heat rising in her blood and lifted her eyes to see Umat. Her sister stood as still as stone, her face smooth, tight, and shining with pure rage.
Lareet looked back down at the table. The globe had grown into the double-lens shape of a city-ship.
“Lareet, Umat, we don't have much time. We're going to hit in—” Again they heard the background voice. A woman's voice, Lareet decided. “Fifty-six minutes,” Arron went on. “We know you have to code every move in by hand. But if you move soon, Captain Esmaraude can give you some shortcuts. We can still all get through this. You don't have to kill me unless you really want to. You don't have to kill each other at all.”
Lareet stared at Umat. She felt a cold, leaching panic steal into her bones. “Sister…” she breathed.
“He's playing on your blood, Lareet,” said Umat heatedly. Lareet felt the answering warmth of anger stir in her. It came from all around. Anger at the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead, at Arron and his allies, this captain and commander, and always, always, always at the devna who drove them all to this. “I will get you and your children safely away.”
“I heard that, Umat!” cried Arron. “Hear me! Even if you launched the shuttles right now, they would not get far enough away to avoid getting hit by the debris from the collision. Everybody's going to die, Umat. Everybody.”
The noise of panting grew louder. Every mouth was open. Every ear pressed flat against their owner's scalp. Fear wrapped around Lareet now, mixing with the anger until her vision blurred. She laid one hand on her pouch and the other on the cool surface of the comm station and tried to steady herself.
“What's the point!” demanded Arron from the speakers. “Mother Night! It's not going to work! All that's going to happen is you will prove you can't think past your hatred!”
“Shut that off!” shouted Umat.
One of the dayisen touched the key that shut the speaker off.
Silence fell, except for the echoing noise of sisters panting and trying to get it under control. Fear and anger whirled on all sides. Lareet pressed her hand against her pouch as if she could feel her microscopic daughters in her womb. Her children, begotten at Umat's urging, as much her sister's as hers. Conceived to seal their bond and bring mem out of their quarrel. Her daughters, Umat's daughters.
Arron's anguished voice rang around her head.
Everybody's going to die. Everybody.
Lareet did not realize she'd crossed the deck until she laid her hand on Umat's shoulder.
“It is over, Sister,” she said softly. “We gambled, and we lost.”
“No!” Umat grabbed her hand and squeezed it until Lareet's skin bunched in protest She held her sister, eyes and ears and heart “No. They are bluffing. They are Human. They do not have the passion to die for a cause!”
“Sister, they are there!” Lareet wrenched both ears toward the table. “They are sitting right in our path and not moving!” She laid her hand over Lareet's hand and went on more softly. “They mean it, Sister, with whatever emotion drives their frozen hearts. Do you really believe Scholar Arron would lie to us?”
Umat's ears waved wildly. “We have sworn to die for the safety of our children.”
Lareet held her tighter. She could feel the confusion at her back. She could almost smell it, strong and sharp over the scent of rot and death drifting through the tunnel from the city. “Our oath was sworn when there was a reason for it, Sister. Now, there would be no point to your death.”
Umat's skin struggled as if it meant to crawl off her body. She flicked her gaze around the bridge. Lareet's gaze followed. The sisters clustered together in groups, sharing strength, sharing fear and anger, and trying without success to lessen their confusion. Lareet and Umat had caught them all in their conflict. Lareet felt it It strengthened and scared her at the same time.
“And if we live, what then?” said Umat, her voice high and tight “How long would we live for? Will the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead leave us alive?”
“You could come with me to the colonies.” Lareet laid her sister's hand on her belly guard. “You could come with us.”
“NO!” Umat clamped he
r free hand on Lareet's shoulder and shook her. “I will not let you do this, Sister! If we turn away now, the devna and their Humans win!”
Anger burst from every soul on the bridge like the blossoming of blood red flowers in a summer's nightmare. Lareet felt it press down on her. She stiffened every muscle under every inch of her skin to stand against it.
“They've already won,” she said, struggling not to gasp the words out. “If we move quickly, we can save three thousand of our sisters. If we don't, we lose three thousand of ours to kill three of theirs. Tell me truthfully, Sister, if this were an ordinary war, would you take those numbers?”
They stood there, hands gripping each other. She felt Umat's anguish, her need to see her sisters and their children safe batter at her. It was hard and unforgiving and loud. But for once in her life, Lareet knew Umat was wrong. She stood there holding her sister tight, and did not let it into her blood.
Slowly, like the tide pulling back from the shore, the anger around them faded. The confusion steadied. One by one, the sisters-in-command stopped panting.
Umat looked at Lareet in complete disbelief. Her muscles sagged. Her sharp ears crumpled. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Turn that thing back on,” she murmured.
“Lareet? Umat?” Scholar Arron's voice was tight with anguish.”We're running out of time here. It might be too late already. Answer me, please…”
Umat looked at Lareet, pleading with her entire body. Lareet dipped her ears and spoke up. “Scholar Arron, will you grant our sisters safe passage to the colonies?”
“I'll convoy them myself if I have to,” said a strange man's voice. “I'll swear it on whatever you want.”
“Then tell us what to do.” Umat sank slowly into the captain's chair. “We've lost.”
Mother was crouched over a pile of clean clothes when the Human came to the back door.
Theia had seen right away that the Queens-of-All had no idea what to do with them. That much had been written in the tightening of their skin and the tense angle of their ears. Mother was an enemy and a failure, and they had all kinds of possibilities for her. But Mother was no longer a mother, or at least she wouldn't be for much longer. Her will was being claimed by the Ancestors. As soon as it was fully claimed, she'd be an Ancestor, only her body would still live on earth as a father. Where he walked, each step would be heard, and the Ancestors would prick up their ears and pay attention to everything that went on around him.
Aunt Armetrethe had the grace not to look too surprised when the Queens had told her to take her Changing sister home and care for her. It was clear, though, that Aunt Armetrethe didn't know what to do with them either. She knew what she was supposed to do, but Mother's Changing had ruined whatever tidy, vicious plans she'd put together to prove, once and for all, that she and Aunt Senejess had been right and Mother had been wrong. She nursed a hatred that must have had the Ancestors howling, but felt she had to do some kind of duty toward the new father.
So she cleared out the back chamber of the house, had the cousins bundle up all of Praeis's and Theia's possessions there and commended Theia to watch over her mother until the Change was complete and she could be taken, under proper escort and cover, of course, to a male house.
It wasn't easy. Mother was still lucid for hours at a time, but she was frenetic. She couldn't sit still, even when she saw how distressed Theia was.
“It's a stage of life, nothing more, Theia, but why now, why now, why now?” She paced from the door to the window and back again, with little, jerky steps. “You need to get back to the colonies. I was wrong to bring you and your sister here, wrong to bring you here, get back as soon as you can, you have near family there still, take shelter with them and live your life away from Queens and hate and war and all the things your mother was fool enough to think she could fix with her triumphant return.”
“I promise, Mother,” she said, just to try to ease her.
“You promise, you promise, of course you promise.” Mother ran her fingertips across the windowpane. “You are a good daughter, a fine, well-grown, strong daughter.”
Then, just as suddenly as they started, the words would stop. Mother's eyes would focus on nothing at all, and she'd be running her hands over the wall, or pressing her nostrils against the glass in the slit window, or picking at the clothes from the satchels as if trying to decide which ones felt best.
Now there was this man standing in the threshold, popeyed behind his faceplate, watching Mother sort through the clothes and rub them against her face and arms.
“Well?” said Theia in English. “What is it?”
The man coughed gently through his breath filter and looked at his boots. “I've got a message for Praeis Shin t'Theria. I was told to come to this door, I think, anyway.” He had a nasal voice, and Theia's ears wanted to crumple at the grating sound of it.
“I am Praeis Shin's daughter. I'll take it.”
Awkwardly, the man pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket. Inside was some much folded paper. He unsealed the bag and held it out. Theia plucked the paper out, careful not to touch the bag.
“Thank you,” said Theia with as much politeness as she could force into her voice. Now, please go away.
He didn't move. The Human's gaze slid over her and Theia knew he was staring at her mother. “Is that a father?” he asked.
Theia slammed the door in his face.
Mother was still busy with the clothes. Theia sat down heavily in the chair and pulled hard on her own ear.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be surrounded by her sisters and her cousins. They'd be sitting clustered around Mother, encouraging her, soothing her, singing to the Ancestors for her as her voice faded. They'd take turns visiting the shrine. Some of them would be dickering with those who wanted to bring strong Shin t'Theria souls into their blood families. Res would have been so good at that. It was supposed to be a joyful time, a holy time. Not a time to sit alone and desolate in a back room with cousins stealing in and out to bring food and lay a quick hand on her shoulder, torn between her distress and their own mother's bewildered anger.
“Mother, I'm tired,” Theia said.
Mother did not look up. Her ears didn't even twist around. She lifted up the burgundy sari she'd worn the day they stepped off the shuttle and buried her face in the soft fabric.
“Mother, I miss you.”
Mother snuffled the cloth and Theia felt tears running down her cheeks. She wiped at her eyes and, more to distract herself than anything else, unfolded the letter.
The whole thing had been written in English.
Dear Praeis,
If you are receiving this, you can tell your Queens and their Council that the Getesaph threat overhead has been removed, one way or another. You are safe from that direction now. Completely safe, I can't swear that strongly enough.
The reason I think I can't is because I've now got to tell you I've lied to you.
Theia felt warm breath on her ear and started. Mother had picked herself up from the clothes pile. She still ran the sari through her fingers, but she also leaned over Theia's shoulder, twitching her ears at the letter.
Theia slowly turned her attention back to the words on the page.
I ordered the coagulant that disabled your fleet to be released. I convinced Bioverse we needed to stop your war without you knowing about it and hold the peace long enough to evacuate the planet and salvage the century project.
I thought Bioverse was coming in to save your world. I knew that I was, and most of the people I worked with were. Maybe Bioverse really was. But it was also coming in to get its new bioforms, and it has a contingency plan drawn up, in case your people don't fall into line.
You need to know about this, Praeis, so your people can decide what to do about us. I've enclosed it. I'll swear in front of whoever that this is real.
I still want to save the world, Praeis. I'm just not sure how to do it anymore.
Lynn
Theia lifted the first page, and read the second, more crumpled sheet. She felt her ears flatten against her scalp and her skin rippled in thick waves from her neck to her knees.
Ancestors Mine, Theia lowered the letter. She wanted to throw back her head and howl at the ceiling. Ancestors Mine! What am I supposed to do about this?
“Box,” said Mother suddenly.
Theia jerked around. Her mother retreated to the clothes pile. “Box, box.” Mother pawed through the heap of fabric.
Theia clenched the letter in her fist. “I don't understand, Mother.”
Mother's ears crumpled. “David's box!”
“Here. It's here.” Theia picked up one of the few unplundered satchels and unsealed it. She pulled out the black box of vials and injectors for her mother to see. “Mother, you're into the Change. One more dose won't—”
“All,” Mother said, desperation plain in her thickened voice. “Give me all.”
“Mother, no!” Theia took her shoulders, hoping to soothe her with the touch. “We don't know what that will do to you. Please, let it go. Let me keep you as a father and see your blood and soul go on.”
Her mother stroked her arms, back and forth, back and forth, and Theia was sure her will had surrendered to the journey again. But she looked down at her daughter with liquid eyes. “Please.”
Theia felt every muscle in her body sag. “All right, Mother.”
Theia put the box on the small serving table and undid its catch. The vials glistened in the light from the slit window.
One at a time, Theia picked up the vials and inserted them into the injector. Miraculously, Mother held still while Theia lifted the pipette to her neck forty times.
Her whole hand was shaking by the time she sank the last injection into her mother's neck.
Theia dropped the injector back into the box and buried her face in her hands.