Playing God(143)

Arron turned on his heel and strode across to the waiting shuttle.

Lynn stood there, stiff-backed and dry-eyed, until the siren cut the air, warning all personnel to leave the hangar. Depressurization commencing in three minutes. Two minutes, thirty seconds. Two minutes, twenty.

Lynn held herself to a walk all the way back to the cabin. It wasn't until David put his hand on her shoulder and asked what was wrong that she broke down crying for Arron and everything that had never happened.

“It's all right,” David leaned her toward him. “It's all right. Go ahead. Just let me …” He lifted the paper from her fingers.

“Ah, God,” Lynn wiped at her eyes. I don't even know what it is. Arron gave it to me …” She took it back from him and unfolded it.

Under the machine-printed heading ̶Contingency Plans in Case of Fatal Breach of Contract” came a list. Lynn read it and felt the blood drain away to the soles of her feet.

“What the hell was he thinking?” she demanded of David.“It won't come to this! We've got everything under control!” She bunched the paper up in her fist. “He knows that We've got everything taken care of. We—” All at once a pair of very different eyes flashed in her mind, not Arron's, but Praeis's. Praeis's when she'd called to find out what was really happening, and Lynn had lied.

David read the expression on her face. “So, what the hell was he thinking?”

She looked at the crumpled paper again. “He was thinking of showing me what other people were planning on doing if the Dedelphi didn't cooperate. He was thinking of showing me where it could lead if we forgot—” She swallowed. “If I forgot that I'm not the only one playing this game.”

David sighed. “So, what are you going to do this time?”

The sound of near exasperation in his voice made Lynn swing around to look at him.“David?”

He took her hand. “Lynn, listen to me. I'm behind you, whatever you do, but do you remember why we're here? Really? We're not here to save the world, or help Bioverse make a profit. We're here because an independent race of sapient beings asked us to come help. Now you and Bioverse are telling them what to do, and Arron's telling them what to be, and no one is asking them how they want to handle this mess we've all gotten into.”

His voice was soft, but his eyes were thunderous. He was not angry at her, she knew him well enough to know that. He was angry at the mess that had invaded the project like a brand-new virus. One more plague to harrow the Dedelphi.

She swallowed again, and her throat ached. “You're right,” she said slowly. “But David, I can't let the war start up again. I will not let people die when I can stop it. If that's playing God, then it is and it's probably immoral if not illegal and I'm doing it anyway.” She looked at the crumpled wad of paper in her fist. “But I can tell Praeis what's going on.” She unclenched her fist from around the paper. “All of it.”

David took her empty hand and smoothed it out. “It'll be enough, Lynn. Somewhere in here, it will be enough.”

Lynn leaned her head against his shoulder. “God, I hope you're right.”





Chapter XX



The hangar bay was stuffed to the brim with sisters, but even under the rich scent of too many bodies in too small a space, you could still smell the rot from the city. All of the shuttles were full of soldiers and sealed tight with their own air filters on. The remaining sisters had moved in here by suggestion and mutual consent. No one had been able to get the main filtration system going again, but here the smell was at least bearable. Besides, many said, where else should they be at this time man shoulder to shoulder with their sisters?

Lareet looked at all the sisters crowding the deck. All the ones who were going to die with the ship. They were, each one of them, as cheerful as Umat, reminiscing and joking with each other, as if they were all on their way to one great battle, which they were. They would go proudly to the World Mothers.

Umat had almost certainly sent her down here in the hopes that some of the spirit would rub off on her, and it was succeeding. She walked among the soldiers, received their hails, asked if the boredom wasn't wearing on them, offered to top their lies. She felt the bond tightening between all of them. It was real and it was holy and the strength of it almost dizzied her.

She breathed it all in deeply. This is for you, my Daughters, she said to the children in her womb. From my blood to yours, feel and understand how this is all for you.

“How do we progress, Dayisen Lareet?” asked a soldier Lareet didn't recognize, and without a name, she couldn't assign a rank. No one had come to this ship in uniform.