Playing God (25 page)

He was out of the guest chair and across the room before he even had time to think about it. He snatched up his portable and jacked it straight into the wall. Sitting cross-legged on the mattress, his hands hovered over the keys as he tried to decide what to look for.

Finally, he pulled out the threads to the Bioverse Relocation Public Database. (We are here to serve you and yours!)

Arron typed in his request.

PASSENGER MANIFEST FOR SHUTTLE
SOJOURN
FOR 5/17 GETESAPH YEAR 3078.

Because he was registered as a Getesaph passenger, the threads reeled out into the database without challenge or obstruction. A list of names for the preparatory wave personnel appeared on the screen. Arron scanned the titles in front of the personal names.
Hrashn,
engineers.
Tchilick,
farmers.
Chkat,
architects. No soldiers, except, of course, for the wave leaders the Dayisen Rual, Lareet and Umat. He shot out threads for the next day’s manifest, and the next, and the next. No soldiers. Not one.

And not one of the names matched the faces he had seen in the departure session.

Arron’s fingers trembled as he shut down his portable. His eyes stared at the blank walls of his room.

Oh. My. God.

It took him a long moment to realize the fierce, sick sensation building up inside him was anger.

“How could you?” he whispered to the walls. In the next second he was on his feet. “How could you do this!”

He stood there for a moment, his lungs heaving and his hands clenching and unclenching.

What do I do?
His knees wanted to crumple again. He paced, rubbing his upper arms. The fleeting thought reached him that Lareet and Umat might not be part of this. But that was impossible. They had been ensconced in the Parliament deciding who would be in the preparatory wave. They were the ones who had asked him to speak to Lynn about changing the schedule.

He bit his lip. Lynn. He had to tell Lynn. She could stop the relocation until…Until some compromise was worked out. This was a communications problem, it had to be. This was old fears that had not been quieted by the Confederation.

That had to be it.

He sent out a new thread to get Lynn’s location. She was in a meeting with Parliamentary representatives. Something about ensuring open communications between the city-ships and the ground. He left his portable on the bed. She had to stop everything. Right now. Before—

He choked off the thought and strode down the empty Human corridor. Out in the port’s main area, his eyes flickered back and forth like a Getesaph’s ears trying to follow two conversations at once. Here was a mother with infants on her shoulders. Here was one with a live belly. But they had their luggage and sleeping mats piled around them. Indigents who had come early. They weren’t supposed to be here, they weren’t soldiers, not full-time soldiers anyway.

Lynn’s meeting was just breaking up. The door was open and Humans trickled out in ones and twos. None of them was Lynn. Lynn was still in the meeting room, silhouetted against a schedule board with Dayisen Lareet and Dayisen Umat.

He had no chance to move. Umat glanced right at him.

“Scholar Arron. What is the matter?”

Arron opened his mouth, but no words formed in his mind.

Lynn frowned at him. “Can it wait a minute? There’s another couple of things to go over here.”

Arron made up his mind. “No. It can’t.” He walked into the room, keeping his attention fixed on the sisters, who towered over him.

“Dayisen Lareet, Dayisen Umat, why has Parliament falsified the passenger identities for the first wave of relocation?”

They all stared at him. He let them.

Lynn found her voice first. “Arron, would you care to elaborate on that thesis?”

“The names and positions of the Getesaph in the registration files do not match the names and positions of the Getesaph preparing to leave with the shuttles today.”

A dozen different expressions chased one another across Lynn’s face. For a moment he thought she was going to ask if he was serious. Instead, she faced Lareet and Umat.

“Is there any reason Scholar Arron would make such an accusation?”

“Yes,” said Lareet. “There is.”

Umat tackled Lynn. They both sprawled on the floor. Arron stared for a second, and it was too long. Lareet dived around him and slapped the door control. The portal slid shut.

Lynn struggled under Umat’s weight, landing ineffective blows on Umat’s arms and shoulders.

“Room voice!” Lynn shrieked.

“Voice off,” bellowed Lareet over her. “Set keyboard input at this station.”

Arron tried to duck sideways, but Lareet matched his movement. “Come with us, Scholar Arron,” she said softly. “Neither of you has to be hurt. Especially not you, Sister.”

“This is crazy.” Arron feinted left, then right. He got two steps to the comm station before Lareet caught him around the waist and hauled him backward.

Arron flailed in her grasp, kicking backward reflexively. She caught hold of his wrist and twisted his arm neatly behind his back. With her greater weight, she leaned into the small of his back, forcing him gasping to his knees.

“No one has to get hurt,” she insisted. “You are not our enemies.”

“Fuck you both!” screamed Lynn. She grabbed Umat’s wrists, trying to keep Umat’s hands away from her throat. Umat gradually forced Lynn’s hands down. One-handed, the Getesaph undid the catches on Lynn’s faceplate. Her ears and nose folded closed and she reached into the helmet. Arron heard a wordless scream before Umat pressed her hand hard onto Lynn’s throat.

“No!” he shouted, flinging himself forward. Pain lanced through his arm and shoulder as Lareet tightened her grip.

“She will not be killed,” Lareet told him. “Umat knows her work.”

As he watched, Lynn’s struggles weakened and stopped.

“Why?” Arron choked on the word. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t tell him, Sister.” Umat closed Lynn’s faceplate and stood up. Lynn lay still on the floor. Arron couldn’t tell if she was still breathing. His heart pounded heavily against his rib cage.

“You will have a blistered hand, Sister,” said Lareet.

“I already do.” Umat crossed to the comm station and typed on the keyboard. If Lynn was breathing too shallowly, Lareet was breathing too heavily. “It will not be so bad.” She coughed. “My exposure is not great. Humans are not so poison as we commonly believe.” She swallowed hard and leaned against the console. “But I am going to be sick. I think I breathed something in.”

Somebody knocked hard on the door. Umat slid the door open by hand. Two Getesaph Arron didn’t know darted inside. “No word has gone out yet,” said the taller of the two as she shut the door behind her.

“This room doesn’t seem to be watched.” The shorter sister knelt by Lynn. Lynn coughed, and her whole body twitched.

She’s alive.
Arron almost melted with relief.

“They’re only monitoring the halls,” said Lareet. “Human notions of privacy, again.”

“That does not mean we have much time, Ovrth Tair.” Umat straightened herself up.

Ovrth Tair carried a small bag. She opened it up. Lynn stirred more strongly. Her eyelids fluttered. Tair took a capsule out of the bag and undid Lynn’s faceplate. Tair cracked the capsule between her fingers and tossed it into Lynn’s helmet and clamped the faceplate back down. Lynn lay still again.

“Promise me you have the proper dosage for Humans,” said Lareet quietly.

Tair glanced at her reproachfully. “Of course, Dayisen Lareet. I know my job, as do you.” Tair held out a second capsule.

“We must have you unconscious, Scholar Arron,” said Lareet. “Will you trust us and take it willingly?”

Arron’s mouth had gone completely dry. “You will have to do this to me, Sister,” he croaked. “My will does not move in this direction.”

Tair shrugged and came closer until her smooth, tight face was all Arron could see. Her thick fingers undid his faceplate. She closed her nostrils and cracked the capsule. Arron smelled something bitter. His head swam.

“Please believe that I am sorry,” said Lareet from a long way away. “If you had not come in here, we would not be doing this.”

Darkness slipped over him, and Arron didn’t hear anything else.

Resaime’s heart fluttered between excitement and fear. One hand held Aunt Senejess’s arm. The other carried a satchel stuffed with nothing more than blankets from the closet in their dorm room. Aunt Senejess carried most of their clothes in an awkward packet in her arms. It almost entirely obscured her vision, which, as she had said in the room, was the whole idea.

The bright sun made Res’s skin itch under the shadowy pink makeup Aunt Senejess had smeared across her. The bracelets on her wrists and rings clipped to her ears jingled with every step.

They had left the dormitories by the south side, and made a wide circle around to the north side, where new arrivals trudged patiently to the perpetually open doors.

Aunt Senejess had one ear turned toward a pair of soldiers strolling toward the doors at an off-duty pace and at an angle that would cross the path Res and her aunt were taking. Aunt Senejess carefully matched their pace. The soldiers were deep in conversation with each other and paid no attention until Aunt Senejess collided straight into them. The loose knot holding the packet shut came undone, the blanket fell open, and clothes and sundries scattered around the sidewalk.

“Mother Night!” exclaimed one of the soldiers, while Resaime scrambled to gather their things together. “Can’t you hear?”

“I’m sorry, Dayisen. I’m very sorry.” Senejess grabbed at a scarf that threatened to blow away in the breeze. “We hurried so to pack, I’m afraid I was not careful. I’m sorry.”

Resaime risked a glance up from her job of rummaging through the clothes to make sure everything was there. The soldier’s expression softened.

“When’s your time, Mother?”

“Not for two weeks yet, so they tell us.” Aunt Senejess jerked a thumb toward the main building. “But we thought…”

“You and the rest of the city.” The soldier shook her head. “Hear me, Citizen Sister, everyone will leave in time. The Humans will not start their work until we’re all gone. You can go back home and wait your turn.”

“Isn’t there room for us here?” Resaime was amazed at how small her aunt’s voice sounded.

The soldier pressed her lips together and blew out an exasperated
bb-rrrrr-ttt
noise. Her duty-sister bared her teeth at her.

“Of course there’s room,” said the sister. “There just isn’t any need.”

“They’re saying they’ll fill the two ships they have and let the plague take the rest.” The quaver in Aunt Senejess’s voice was so alarming, Resaime reached out instinctively. “I have only my youngest daughter left, Dayisen.” Her aunt clutched Resaime’s hand.

The second soldier dipped her ears sympathetically and touched Senejess’s shoulder. “Rumors wander the streets with the fathers. Mother, no one is going to be left behind to this plague or any other.”

“I’m sure you know the truth, Dayisen.” Senejess bent to tie her bundle back up. Resaime put her finger on the string to hold it down while her aunt tightened the knots. “I don’t understand very much of this. Can the Humans really remove all this evil from us?”

The first soldier bared her teeth. “What the Humans will not take care of, we will.”

Her sister-in-arms shook her lightly by the shoulder. “We will be late for our shift, Dayisen Oraen.”

Oraen touched her hand in acknowledgment. “Good luck to you, Mother. Go home and wait in patience. You will soon see there is no reason to fear or hurry.”

The arms-sisters, the
dayisen,
Resaime corrected herself, marched away.

“Well, my Daughter”—Aunt Senejess hoisted the bundle onto her shoulder—“what do you think of that?”

“I’m not sure,” Resaime answered in careful Getesaph. Aunt Senejess had warned her that a snatch of conversation was more likely to be paid attention to if it was in a foreign language, particularly t’Therian. “You knew they were planning something.”

“We strongly suspected, but that was all.” Aunt Senejess squinted after the dayisen. “Now we know. What the Humans will not take care of, we will, she said. What can that mean but an attack on our Great Family?”

The skin on Resaime’s arms bunched and knotted. “What do we do now?”

“We go into the port.” Aunt Senejess started walking again. “We stow these bundles and try to find out what rumors they are allowing to wander about with their fathers.” She glanced down at Resaime, and her eyes sparkled. “Then we will see what the Humans’ network can tell us, and we take all this news back home.”

She’s going to hear how loud my heart is beating. I know it.
“What will we do with it then?”

“What we must.” Aunt Senejess now had her eyes straight ahead.

Resaime bit her lip and struggled to keep up with her aunt’s long, swinging stride. They were almost to the doors, nearly to the port and its crowd. She had to do something, and do it now.

I have to do this. I have to.
Her blood was roaring in her ears. “But…” She put a quaver of her own into the word. It was easier than she thought. Her stomach clenched. “Aunt Senejess, at least promise me you’ll do something with it to convince the Queens that the Getesaph are dangerous.” Her aunt stopped and looked her full in the face.

Theia was right. This was completely, totally, and utterly wrong.
She was doing it anyway. “Mother wanted to bring us here to live and grow, but she didn’t tell us…She doesn’t see how the Getesaph will try to hurt them, hurt us. The Humans are all blind. They always have been. I’m worried about Theia, Aunt Senejess. She doesn’t know enough. I’m afraid.” Tears prickled her eyes. Not from fear, but from strain. She felt more naked than she would standing here in her belly guard. All the Ancestors were staring up from the ground at her. They saw a disloyal liar. They saw wickedness and disobedience.

Aunt Senejess set the bundle down and took hold of both of Resaime’s shoulders. “Hear me, my own,” she said softly. “Your words are strong and sensible. I knew you would not stand apart from your family. The news we bring back will not go to the Queens, it will go to the Great Family. Our friends stand ready to broadcast it and post it on the debate walls and call for a break from the Confederation. Despite the events of the past week, the Queens are still isolated in the city with their sycophants. The army will not stay with them long, once we bring them reason to attack. We already have assurances. If the Getesaph are about to do what I suspect, so much the better. We can land our soldiers on their islands and hold their children against their good behavior. If they are capable of feeling, they will make no trouble. If not…” She bared her teeth, panting in anger. “Then they will have nothing left to care about.”