Playing God(144)
“We progress beautifully, my Sister,” said Lareet, loud enough for anybody interested to hear. “We have passed our apogee. Soon it will be time for our sisters onboard the shuttles to take the news back to the Hundred Isles of Home that our daughters are forever safe.”
A resounding cheer rang across the deck. Lareet let it lift her up. A good speech, she thought. Umat will be proud.
As if that were a cue, the open speaker crackled. “Dayisen Lareet is requested to return to the command center.”
Inspired by the lightheatedness around her, Lareet bowed to the speaker box, raising approving laughter.
“Duty calls even our commanders,” observed someone.
“Never was there greater truth, Sister,” Lareet called back.
The long walk through the empty, stinking corridors cooled her blood considerably. By the time she reached the command center, she was able to wonder, and to worry, why she had been summoned.
The hatch cycled back to let her through and she saw Umat and the other commanders clustered around the one comm station they'd left working, in case the Humans said something they really could not ignore. There had been pleas, requests for negotiation, and the level voice of Commander Keale issuing extraordinarily polite generalized threats.
Now, though, Scholar Arron's voice came out of the station.
“Lareet? Lareet?” Inside her mind, she could see his smooth brow furrowing with exasperation. “I know you have to be there somewhere. How long are you going to make me keep talking to myself, here?”
She crossed the deck in half a dozen steps. Umat felt her coming and moved back to make room for her in the crescent of sisters who glowered over the station as if it were a bad omen.
“Lareet, answer me. Umat? You must know where she is. Will you go get her please? We've got… I've got something you need to hear. It's important. Please, answer me.”
Umat met Lareet's eyes, and dipped her ears.
The skin between Lareet's shoulders bunched up. She reached out and touched the key the coders said meant “reply.”
“I'm here, Scholar Arron,” she said.
Arron's familiar sigh of relief drifted out of the station. “I'm grateful to Mother Night. Listen, Lareet, have you got any cameras working on that thing yet?”
Lareet flicked an ear to Umat, who turned to the bridge commander. She dipped her ears. “Yes, we have,” said Lareet.
“Good.” Arron did not sound very certain. What is happening? The last of the warmth from the hangar left Lareet's blood.
Arron went on. “Set one Of the command center cameras to…” He paused, and she could hear a faint voice in the background. “Coordinates 16,24,16.”
“Do it,” said to the ovrth at the navigation station.
A section of the central table lit up. In comical unity, commanders turned from the station to the table. The screen showed a grid, the stars and one large, luminous globe right in the center of the view.
“What is that?” breathed Umat.
“That's probably us,” answered Arron. “I'm aboard the city-ship Manhattan with Commander Keale and Captain Esmaraude. We're on an interception course with your ship.”
The skin crawled across the back of Lareet's neck. Her toes dug at the metal deck. “Arron, what are you doing?”
Arron hesitated. “I'm helping to stop you, Lareet. If you don't break this off, we're going to run the Manhattan straight into the Ur. You'll all die, and so will we.”
The command center was so silent Lareet could hear her own heart beat like thunder. “Scholar Arron, you can't mean it.”
“Dayisen Lareet, I do. It's all over. The only question is whether we live through it or not.”
Umat left her side and strode over to the sister at the navigation post She whispered in her ears. Lareet barely heard the answer. “Dayisen Umat, that will take at least a half hour to code.”
“Do it” breathed Umat. She straightened up and lifted her voice. “Scholar Arron, I don't believe you would do this to us.”
“It's not me doing it Umat.” Lareet knew from the voice that Arron had probably curled his hands into fists to signal his frustration. They were amazingly expressive, those Human hands. “I came along to try to save your lives, our lives.”
The sister at the navigation post began to pant. She covered her mouth to muffle it Umat laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Scholar Arron, is this your revenge for our actions at port?”
“You betrayed me,” he said with a surprising simplicity. “You took lives with your actions. I am bleeding inside for what happened.” The pain was clear in his voice, even for a Human. Lareet glanced around and saw a number of sisters with skin rippling in response. “But you've been betrayed, too,” said Arron.