Arron blinked and rubbed his hands together. “Do you think you could talk your people into letting me thread through to the Ur?”
Surprise straightened Lynn's spine. “Why would you want to do that?”
Arron looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see through it up to the city-ships. “Because my sisters are up there making a hideous mistake.”
Cabal snorted. “Your sisters? I don't think so.”
Arron turned toward him, anger flashing in his eyes. “You don't know, so leave it.”
“I don't know?” Cabal barked out a loud laugh. “Get the walking Buddha to wake you up, Hagopian. You're the one who doesn't know.”
Lynn didn't move. She just watched Arron stand up slowly. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Cabal waved his hand. “Arron, your ‘sisters’ have been planning their little coup since the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead agreed to the Confederation. They've been using you to find out how Humans do things and applying that information to make this work. Rchilthen Byvant and Ishth have known all about it. I've been running information between the two sides for the past year.”
Lynn's jaw dropped. “You helped them do this! You little …” Lynn lurched to her feet. “Do you know what you've done! You've ruined everything! How could you!” Her voice was high, thin, and strident. You gave them David! She wanted to hit him, she realized, she wanted to kill him, but she couldn't do anything but stand there and shake.
“How could I?” Cabal raised his eyebrows. “I'm an info-runner. It's what I do. I get information to people who don't have it. The work here was steady and pretty safe for a Human, ’til they all started shooting at each other and left me sitting in the damn middle of it.” He snorted. “It's kind of funny, you know, all of us had our best-laid plans, and they've ad been shot to hell by the pogos’ pathetic temper tantrums.”
Throughout their exchange, Arron just stayed where he was, frozen, except for his chest, which heaved like a bellows.
“Why are you telling me now?” Arron asked softly.
“Because now it doesn't make any difference. The pogos are going to kill each other, and we're going to go home.” Cabal stood up. “They even invited you to go along, didn't they, Arron?” Cabal cocked his head. “A friendly Human would be very useful when they actually got the ship, as a helping hand, or a hostage.
“You've been used, Arron.” Cabal picked up his helmet and gloves. “And you've been disappointed, Lynn, and I'll bet neither of you wants me around anymore. I'm going for a walk on deck.”
Lynn watched Arron as he watched Cabal fasten his helmet on and shove his hands into his gloves. She knew what he was thinking. He wanted Cabal to be wrong, to be lying. But after everything that had happened, he couldn't quite make himself believe it.
She felt the same way. She sat down, still shaking. She was too tired, too sore, to deal with any of this. Her head had begun to ache with a dull insistent throb.
While they watched, Cabal worked the filter door and walked out. Arron crumpled into the chair and bowed his head until it rested in his hands.
The sight shook Lynn out of her own fears. She touched his shoulder. “I'm sorry.”
He looked up at her and she saw his face looking fierce and lost at the same time. “It wasn't true,” he said. “None of it was true.”
“No,” said Lynn, without asking what he meant. “But it'll be all right.” As she spoke, conviction solidified inside Lynn's soul. “We're going back to Base, and I'm going to put an end to this mess.”
Chapter XVII
Lareet and Umat stood in the threshold of the open laboratory door. “Irat Queth, Irat Shnun, the light of day looks well on you.”
The irat stood at the far end of one of the Humans’ tiny labs. They bent over a comm station until their noses almost touched the screen. Neither of them wore clean-suits. The first order of business had been to sterilize the Human sections. With the help of the maintenance jobbers they had done a good job. The irat had only had to treat a dozen cases of Human poisoning.
After a moment, Irat Queth's ear swiveled around to locate the greeting. She touched her sister's shoulder as if to say “I'll take care of this,” and straightened up.
“As it does on you, Dayisen Lareet and Dayisen Umat,” she said, a little briskly. Obviously the interruption was not welcome.
Umat's ears quivered with suppressed humor. “We wished to hear what progress you and your sisters are making,” she said smoothly. “Have the Humans left us anything useful?”
“The Humans have done some excellent work, which should surprise no one.” Irat Queth walked toward them to draw the conversation away from her sister, who had remained intent on her screen. “The Humans have been studying the vectors of the diseases that make up the plague: How the microbes are transmitted, how they are incubated, what hosts carry them to their homes inside Getesaph bodies.” Irat Queth blinked constantly, flicking her first lid down and back up again in a nervous tic. “As near as we can make out, because they are not sterilizing the ecosphere, our world, they are not looking at wiping out the microbes. They plan instead to limit the microbes’ ability to transmit themselves. They want to make it difficult for the WKV, the plague strains, to travel, while letting the normal strains fill their niches.” Blink, flick, blink. “Their proposed methods, of course, are not something we could apply ourselves, even if we could fully understand them, but their vector research is definitely something we can adapt and expand on.”