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 bioweapon, 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.