“Teal…”
But Teal was already running. “Chena! Stop!”
“Chena!”
Chena jerked her head up. A woman ran toward her. She tightened her grip on Eden’s still form and turned to look down into the water where it swirled against the base of the rust-red cliff.
“Stop! Don’t! It’s Teal!”
Chena turned again; she couldn’t help it. “Teal?” she heard herself breathe.
The woman had stopped running. She stood in a clump of antelope’s tail brush about ten yards away, panting hard. She was tall and round in the hips, with skin the exact color Mom’s had been.
“It’s me, I’m Teal,” she gasped. “I had a tailor age me up. The one who got hold of you, I think.”
“Teal’s gone,” murmured Chena. It was a good thing the woman wore sturdy trousers, she thought idly. Antelope’s tail had thorns. “She left.”
“I’m back,” said the woman. “God’s own, Nan Elle recognized me.” Chena felt her eyes strain as they stared. “And you used to call me vapor-brain,” snorted the woman.
Chena’s mouth had to shape the word several times before any sound come out. “Teal?”
“So, what do you think you’re doing this time?” The woman— Teal? really? Teal come back?—folded her arms, standing with one hip thrust a little forward and her face twisted up, scornful, superior. Just like Teal in the hothouse when she was telling Chena how things really were. Just like Teal a hundred times when they were staying with Nan Elle and she didn’t want to go to class, didn’t want to go on shift, didn’t want to do anything Chena told her she had to.
“Teal.” She took a step forward, and then Eden shifted in her arms. Was it waking up?
“Hello.” Teal waved a careless salute. “I asked what do you think you’re doing.”
Chena looked down at the water. From here, it looked deep blue. Spurts of foam leapt up from where the waves splashed the rocks. Remember what you’re doing. This is important. You have to do it now.
But Teal should know what was happening. “This killed Mom.” She held Eden out.
Teal leaned forward and wrinkled her nose at it. “Doesn’t look old enough.”
“No! This was inside her. This is what they cut out of her!” Teal had to understand. Teal had come back. Teal knew how important this was. Teal was the only other one who knew. “This is what they were going to put inside us!”
Teal cocked her head and eyed Chena skeptically. “So, you’re going to toss the kid over the cliff because the hothousers’ brains are all vacuum-welded?”
Anger, hot as blood, thundered through Chena’s veins. “You don’t understand. You never understand!”
Teal threw open her arms. “Explain it to me, then, Chena. You always have forty thousand explanations in storage. Let’s have the one for murdering a little boy.”
“It’s not a little boy!” she screamed. “Stop saying it’s a little boy!”
“Look at him, Chena!” snapped Teal. “If that’s not a little boy, what is it?”
Chena looked at the figure lying limp in her arms. It still looked so much like Teal—not this new, strange Teal in front of her, but Teal when she was little. Teal when she had listened, when she had believed.
“It’s a cure for the Diversity Crisis. It’s a murder weapon. It’s our future.” Chena’s eyes burned as she looked at it. It shifted again. It was going to wake up soon and open Teal’s eyes. She wouldn’t be able to jump if she had to look into Teal’s eyes. “It can’t get sick, no matter what it’s exposed to. They’re going to use it to kill off the Authority and all the Called. They’re going to be the only people left alive.” She lifted her gaze to Teal, tall and mature, all ready for the hothousers to use. “They’re going to use us to make more of them, Teal, so they can kill more people!”
“So, you’re going to throw him off a cliff?”
Tears came at last, streams of heat trickling down her cheeks. “They’re never going to leave us alone, Teal. They’re going to keep coming and coming and coming. They’re going to use us to kill people, Teal. I don’t want to kill people.” Teal’s face shifted as she finally understood it was not just Eden who had to die.
“No?” Teal’s eyebrows rose and she sauntered a couple of steps forward. “You just want to kill him and you.” Teal stepped up next to Chena and looked down over the cliff, measuring the length of the drop with her gaze.