by Sarah Zettel
They had arms-sisters dug in on the shore. Without support, they'd be slaughtered. They were in the midst of a brief respite while the Getesaph pulled back and regrouped, but it wouldn't last forever.
The only thing that would throw her arms-sisters into a worse spin than all the rumors flying around the decks would be to have the worst ones confirmed: that it wasn't the Getesaph, it was the Humans who had done this. The immediate mediate conclusion would be that the Humans had thrown in with the enemy.
Praeis resumed climbing the stairs, and Theia went back to following her. Praeis couldn't keep herself from panting gently. Theia came up beside her and brushed Praeis's shoulder with her shoulder. Praeis was grateful for the gesture, and wished she could put her arm around her daughter, but she didn't dare. They couldn't let the arms-sisters see how bad it was, even if every last one of them knew.
On the bridge, the Ship-Mother stepped quickly forward. “Task-Mother, we're being hailed.” She handed across a pair of binoculars and pointed out the bridge window.
Praeis raised the binocs and focused them. Out in the bay, which was calm and blue and gave no hint of the activity directly underneath its surface, a little silver boat cut through the waves like a knife. A couple of white figures stood on the deck, shining in the bright sun.
And here they come, she thought. Ancestors Mine, what are they going to say about this?
Just then, the speaker crackled with the hail-sister code. An awkward voice speaking with a thick accent she couldn't place from anywhere said, “We are Robin Ford and Ari Chin of Bioverse Incorporated. We are asking permission to approach.”
“They're doing it anyway. Look at that thing move,” muttered the Ship-Mother.
“Answer them, Ship-Mother,” said Praeis. “Let them come up.” As if we could stop them in the shape we're in.
Praeis and Theia went out onto the deck. They were quickly joined by the Ship-Mother. The needlelike boat sped forward as if by magic and came neatly alongside. A pair of third-sisters struggled with a sticky ladder, but got it lowered, eventually. Two Humans, one man and one woman, climbed up.
“We need to talk to Praeis Shin t'Theria,” said the man, breathlessly, to the third-sisters as soon as his boots hit the deck.
“I am Task-Mother Praeis Shin.” Praeis took a half step forward. “This is my daughter Theiareth Shin and Ship-Mother Urae Vania.” She dipped an ear toward Theia, then toward the Ship-Mother. The Humans’ faces were both strained. Whatever was coming next, they were not looking forward to it. “You're in the middle of a combat zone, Human-Sisters, and we must tell you you're in great danger.”
“We know, Task-Mother.” The woman was shorter, rounder, and considerably more brown than her companion. She spoke in fits and starts, probably getting a lot of help from an implant. “But we needed to talk to you immediately. Yesterday, an apparently empty underwater bunker was cracked open, and this morning you had a red tide?”
“Yes?” said Praeis. Red tides weren't unusual in these waters, and it had only been a footnote in the reports. Praeis remembered the empty bunker, though. The arms-sisters had been ordered not to occupy it, in case there was a bioweapon or some other kind of poison in there.
The man's face creased. “That was one of ours,” he said. “It contained a coagulant agent designed to congeal pollutants in water.”
“Congeal?” repeated Theia.
“Yes.” The woman bobbed her head up and down. “So that we could send in jobbers to sweep them up as soon as they clotted.”
A distant ringing started in Praeis's ears. “Could this stuff clog industrial lubricants?”
“Yes,” said the man. “That's what we came to tell you.
We've notified our superiors about what's happened. Lynn Nussbaumer has arranged for a security force to be sent in to keep you safe until we can get you cleaned up. It's our fault; we're going to take care of it.”
Praeis felt her ears wave uncertainly. “You're going to fight for us?”
“Not really,” said the woman. “But we are going to make sure nobody gets near you. You're going to have to recall your people to your ships or your bases, and we'll keep those installations safe until your equipment is cleaned out.”
“You're asking us to withdraw?” exclaimed Ship-Mother Vania, her voice full of disbelief. Her ears flattened against her scalp. “We can't. I mean…” She turned both ears toward Praeis. “With all respect, Task-Mother, I must speak. I know the Humans have no families, but we have sisters out there.” She dipped both ears toward the shore. “We will not abandon them.”
“You can't support them while your gear's clogged up,” said the woman, a tinge of anger coloring her cool Human voice. “Listen, this stuff is alive. It's going to grow and spread and there is nothing in this world to stop it. All your machinery, all your weaponry”—she stabbed a finger toward the window and the distant fleet—“is going to stop working.” Her brown face grew darker as she spoke. “Now, we can help. We want to help, but if you don't quarantine all your equipment where we can get to it in a hurry, this stuff will escape and reinfect everything and you'll never get your war going again.”
“Why isn't your boat affected?” asked Theia suddenly.
The woman gave her a hard look. “We swabbed it down with some specialized disinfectants before we came in, but they're not going to work forever.”
Theia pressed close to Praeis, and Praeis gave her a sideways glance and the flick of one ear. She was obviously dying to say something, and Praeis thought she knew what it was. These two were fidgety for more reasons than one. Praeis glanced around her. Everyone within earshot on deck had frozen in place and strained to hear what she said next.
She laid a hand on Theia's shoulder. She lifted her voice, speaking for the arms-sisters more than the Humans. “Do you swear by your contracts you will keep our arms-sisters safe while you perform this… disinfection?”
“Yes,” said the man. “We'll put it on paper, if you want.”
“Very well,” said Praeis in her firm command voice. “We must get started immediately. Ship-Mother Vania, call in the Group Mothers.” The Ship-Mother dipped her ears and retreated to the bridge. Praeis turned her ears to the Humans. “Will you agree to wait aboard your boat until my people are gathered?”
“Of course,” said the woman.
“Good. Theia, you will come with me so we can get ready for this meeting.” Praeis turned and strode into the administrative cabin.
Theia slipped in behind her and closed the door. “Did you feel it too, Mother?”
Praeis stood in the middle of the room, her ears waving in every direction. “Oh yes, my daughter. Those two are lying.”
“Through their teeth,” said Theia in English. She took Praeis's band worriedly. “What are we going to do?”
“What we've been told,” Praeis said calmly. “But only until we find out what's going on.”
Keale kept his seat while Rchilthn Byvant rose out of her chair and towered over him. He watched her face smooth out and her ears flatten against her skull, Some distant part of his mind wondered if coming here in person had been a mistake. They were alone in their private office, and even his implant wasn't recording this exchange. The Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead had insisted on that.
“You're protecting them! They are killing our sisters!”
Keale sat up as straight as the overstuffed sofa would let him. “Not while we're here they're not.”
That stopped Byvant short and gave him a chance to keep going. “Do you really believe we'd take sides?” he asked, forcing his voice into calm, level tones. “What were we going to do? Order them to stop? Would they listen?” He paused for one heartbeat. “You know they wouldn't. Now, they're stuck tight, and we have a good chance of keeping them that way, as long as you can hold your people back.” Byvant's good ear lifted off her scalp by a bare centimeter. “Attack them while they're helpless and there's a good chance the Queens-of-All will send over a nuclear bomb, or another biow
eapon, something that is less subject to industrial accidents.”
Keale looked past Byvant to her silent sister sitting on a much stiffer and more dignified divan. Ishth, as always, hid her hands under a fold in her gold-and-silver jacket. Her ears had drooped a little, whether from frustration, or simple weariness, he couldn't tell. Her silence must have had some effect. Byvant took two steps backward.
Let's hope this is a good sign. “In the meantime,” Keale went on, “we can get your daughters and carrying mothers out of the way, if you'll let us. We can put them aboard the Beijing with your cousins the Fil. That way, whatever happens, the future of your Family is safe.”
Byvant turned a questioning ear toward Ishth. “We will have to take this to Parliament, or at least to the Prime Committee,” said Ishth.
“Of course.” Relief washed through Keale. “But think about how you take it. Here's your chance to make it through this with whole skins. It's a clean out if you want it.”
In the next moment, he felt the tide that flowed between the sisters. They wanted his out. They wanted it so strongly, it reached his alien blood and heart.
A whole set of realizations turned over in his mind. You knew, didn't you? You knew exactly what was going to happen aboard the Ur, but it's gone sour on you. You've lost control somehow, haven't you? And now your people are paying for it.
“Consider carefully what brought down this attack,” he said. “And what is still going on that allows it to continue.”
With a strange, sudden clumsiness, Byvant sat down next to her sister and groped for her hand. Ishth gave it to her, and Byvant took it, gently. “We will do what is best for our people, whom we serve,” she said mechanically.
Keale just nodded gravely. “Of course.”
“We will take this to the Prime Committee,” said Byvant. Her voice once again became firm and decisive, but both her ears pointed toward her sister, and her eyes looked at the floor. “A good decision will be handed down.”
“I thank you, Rchilthn Ishth, Rchilthn Byvant,” Keale stood up. And I've got you both.
The Paeccs Tayn were small, by Dedelphi standards. David could look most of them right in the eye. Their cream-and-grey skin looked unnaturally pale to him after weeks of dealing with the bluer t'Therians.
The Queens were there to meet the shuttle when it landed at their single, heavily guarded port. The place was obviously for military use: armored hangars, no planes out in the open, guard towers and heavy guns in place all around it.
He came down the ramp with his staff. The air around them smelled of heat, damp cement, and tension. The Queens, and their guard and a host of what he assumed to be either nobles, or politicians, although he wasn't sure, waited in patient, dignified rows just to the side of the ramp, so he had to turn straight toward the sun to face them. He'd only had a few hours to bone up on the Paeccs Tayn. He didn't even speak the language and would be stammering through it, reading off his implant, which was not something he was looking forward to.
However, Keale had told Lynn it was vital that the Paeccs Tayn be reassured that the Humans hadn't decided to abandon the Dedelphi, or that they might join the (hopefully) stalled war between the Getesaph and the t'Theria. Nobody asked why Keale was so sure, but he was sure enough to convince Lynn, and Lynn had been sure enough to convince David. The plague had already taken sixty percent or more of the Paeccs Tayn, so it was decided that more than a veep, or a senior manager, or a security expert, the Paeccs Tayn needed to speak with a doctor.
One of the Queens, the First Queen Oran ji Ufa, his implant reminded him, stepped briskly up to him. Her earrings clinked as she moved. She spoke, and his implant scrolled the English words for him.
“You are Dr. David Zelotes? You are here to help us? This is what we have been told.”
David subvocalized the reply he wanted to make, and read the words off as they passed, mangling the pronunciation as he went. “I am. My staff and I are here to help in whatever way we can, and to assure you that we will stay until the work is done.” Maybe they'll learn to appreciate the strong silent type.
She leaned in close to him, as if trying to read his implant. “You are not afraid of the t'Theria and the Getesaph?”
More than you know. David worked hard to keep that thought out of his face, and to not step back. The Queen's breath steamed his helmet. “There is more to the world than the t'Theria and the Getesaph.”
“Ha!” Queen Oran stood back, folding her hands across her pouch in what David had always taken to be a sign of extreme satisfaction. “It is well said, isn't it? Some days I wonder why we let them forget that.” Her ears stilled “I dunk we will like you, Dr. David Zelotes. You will come with us?”
David bowed his head. “Gladly.”
Arron sat at the comm station in his sparsely furnished guest quarters. Cabal had been installed three doors down on the same level. There had been no problem getting them both space. Over a public comm station, Arron had asked Lynn for two cabins. She'd paused for all of thirty seconds to listen to him before saying, “Sure, whatever you need,” and cut the connection. The Base AI had taken care of the remaining details.
Arron had walked Cabal to his cabin. Cabal had stalked around the hexagonal space once and grunted. Then, he plunked Arron's portable down on the table, saying that the first thing he'd have to do was see who was paying attention out there. Arron had left him to it.
Arron watched the blank screen of his own comm station and rubbed his forearms. Walking through the Base corridors had felt strange. This was the first time in years he was literally surrounded by Humans. Part of him wanted to run, and part of him wanted to touch everyone he saw. It was so… wrong to see everyone standing politely distanced from each other. Wrong and unnatural. Feeling that reaction inside himself made everything worse, so he'd retreated to his cabin to wait for Cabal.
Since then, he'd been totally ignored. Lynn and Bioverse had many more important things to worry about than him. Things that were also more important man finding out what was really going on aboard the Ur. He'd tried to ask Lynn about it, but she'd just shaken her head and said that was all up to Security Commander Keale. She'd sworn she'd talk with him as soon as things got into motion. That had been three days ago.
Whatever Lareet and Umat thought they were doing had gone unaddressed. Hadn't anybody here thought to try to ask them what they were afraid of? What had driven them to this extreme? And what in the name of the World Mothers had made them turn on him?
Arron took a deep breath. This probably wouldn't work. This couldn't possibly work, and there was no way for him to make it work, and he had nothing more to give Cabal to get him to make it work. But he had to try.
“Room voice, thread me through to the city-ship Ur.”
“Completing request.”
Arron waited for a security lockout, the alarm, at least a validity question from the AI, but none came. The station cycled through the addresses, and he waited, his heartbeat slowing down each second nothing unusual happened. Apparently the higher-ups at Bioverse couldn't conceive why anybody would want to call the ship, and their security chief had been too busy to think of it for them.
“Request completed,” said the room voice, although the screen was still blank. “Audio only available.”
Arron's heart rose into his throat. “This is Scholar Arron to the city-ship Ur. I am seeking Dayisen Rual Lareet and Dayisen Rual Umat. Can they be found to speak with me?”
He strained his ears for some reply out of the dark screen. Instead, he heard the door swish open at his back.
“What are you doing!” shouted Lynn.
“Room voice, close connection.” Arron turned around to face her. Her bandages were gone, but the new skin shone a little too pink and a little too fresh, giving her a strangely patchwork appearance. “I'm trying to talk to my sisters…” he began calmly.
“Your sisters!” Rage distorted her face.
Lynn, what's happened to you? “Dayisen Lareet an
d Dayisen Umat. They've hosted me for my entire time here, and I've always thought of them as my sisters.”
Lynn ran her hand across the stubble on her scalp. “Did you ever ask them what they thought?”
He felt real anger flash through him. “If I didn't, I was just imitating you.”
Lynn's face flushed scarlet. She took one step toward him.
At that moment, the room voice cut through the air. “Dr. Nussbaumer, an urgent call from Praeis Shin t'Theria waiting for you.”
Lynn closed her mouth so hard, Arron heard her teeth click together. “We aren't finished,” she said as she faced the comm station. It was only when she turned her back that Arron realized he had no idea what she was doing here, or how she got in. She must have had the call thread to the Ur spliced. Was she looking for anyone calling the Ur, or just him? He couldn't be sure. For all he could tell, she had forgotten his existence.
“Activate the station. I'm here, Praeis.” She did not sit down, she just folded her arms across her chest.
Watching over her shoulder, Arron saw the screen flicker to life. There was Praeis Shin front and center, but Praeis was wearing a filter mask over her nose and mouth. A thick rubber suit covered her torso. He peered past her at the shadowy background and realized with a start she must be at his old outpost, talking on the last remaining comm station.
“Lynn. Thank you for taking this. I can't stay where I am for long. It's not exactly secure here.” The filter mask muffled Praeis's voice, but Arron could still hear the strain in it. Her ears were tilted back and quivering with stress. “It's the only station I could get to. Lynn, what's going on? I appreciate your people are keeping us safe, but we're being fed some story about accidents and pollution congealers.”
Lynn's color had dropped somewhere close to normal. “Praeis, I swear, it's true. It was an accident,” she said without any hesitation. Arron felt his stomach clench. How could you do this? Lynn, do you even know what you're doing? “The bioengineers have been storing their gunk up all over the planet waiting for the time to let it loose. We didn't know—”
