Playing God(138)

The news, when it came to the command center, was not good. All the water was affected, on both sides of the ship. A little potable liquid could be created by a slow process of repeated boiling and filtration. No one had to point out that without sterile water, all the medical experiments would grind to a halt, but Lareet saw the faces of the irat who came in to report. They were all thinking about it.

The fungus that was taking over the lawns and strangling the trees had indeed gotten into the gardens. They were now havens for corpse grey mushrooms that split open with the stench of methane and scattered clouds of brown spores everywhere.

Their city. Their beautiful, lovingly made city was rotting around them.

“We can do without the gardens, if we have to,” said Umat, her ears flicking back and forth. “We can eat the artificial rations the Humans left. It's the water.”

“It's other things as well, Sister,” said Lareet gravely. “Have you smelled the air in the cities? The stench is getting stronger. It's going to be unbreathable very shortly. If we cannot get the filtration system going, we will be forced into pressure suits and clean-suits.” She paused and decided she did not need to add that there were not enough for the entire complement aboard.

“We could load the extra personnel into shuttles and send them back home.” The shuttles’ computers hadn't been sabotaged. The autopilots had assured their best flyers they could get back to the Hundred Isles, even at the acceleration and trajectory that would be reached when the ship was moving full tilt.

If only we could teach the city-ship to be so cooperative. Lareet shook her head. “Dayisen Umat, if we send anyone out now, they'll be picked up by the Humans, or the Parliament. If anything goes wrong, they'll be exiled, or killed. We still need to wait.” We need to wait until we are sure this will work. Until we know our sisters will go home heroes. So I can stand beside you as long as possible and breathe you all the way into my womb for our daughters to remember.

“How did they do it?” Umat flung her arms out.

Lareet frowned down the tunnel. Where there had once been green grass, there were now sickly brown mushrooms. “Some of those jobbers must have carried spores. The rest of the attack was probably a diversion.”

Umat turned eyes and ears toward her. “Then we are once again out of time.”

Lareet dipped her ears silently.

Umat faced the coders. “Can we move the ship yet?”

“We can move it,” said Dayisen Ksenth. The head of the coders’ dawn shift looked down at the miles of broad paper ribbon lying curled on the central table. “We can start the engines anytime we need to—”

Umat cut her off with uncharacteristic impatience. “Can we move it where we want it?”

Dayisen Ksenth's ears crumbled. “That's still theoretical.”

Lareet touched her sister's arm. Umat's skin rippled, but she gave no other sign of noticing Lareet. “How much less theoretical will another two days make it?” Umat asked.

“Not much,” the dayisen admitted. “We unfortunately do not have the luxury of a test flight.”

Lareet felt the uncertainty ripple through her sister, and her own skin bunched up in answer. “It was always a risk, Sister,” Umat said, as if they were alone. “I think the Humans did this to discomfort us. What will they do when they really want to root us out?”

Lareet lowered both eyes and ears. She already knew what Umat was going to say next, and she could not think of one valid reason to prevent her.

“Give the orders to the engine room, Dayisen Ksenth,” Umat said in a calm, level voice. “We are moving now.”





Chapter XIX



Commander Keale sat at the conference table in his office with Captain Esmaraude. A 3-D of the Ur hung on the video wall between them.

“Start with the engines to be safe.” Esmo spoke each word as if it hurt. Keale was sure it did. The Ur was her ship, and here they were talking calmly about dismantling it.

“It wouldn't be that safe,” countered Keale. “One blast out the back jets and the crane ship will be a floating heap of slag.”

“Not if the crane goes straight in.” She tapped the hangarbay doors. “And gets straight to work. It'll take the pogos a minute to figure out what's going on, and I guarantee you they're not going to be turning the jets on quickly. If we warn the crane's crew what to expect, they'll be able to get the ship well out of the way of any blast.” She frowned. “Cranes steer like pigs, but they're a lot faster than city-ships.”

Keale nodded. “Okay, straight in and go for the engines. Now, we can probably expect them to deploy some jobbers in response—”