Playing God(24)

Praeis smiled a little sadly. “We are not so careful of each other here. We know exactly who we are with, who is around us, who leads us. In the colonies we have to restrain ourselves more because we are surrounded by those who are not of our Great Family. We can only afford to let go for brief moments, as with the celebration when we heard of the Confederation treaty.” She watched the stars watch them all for a long moment.

“What if I pull you away from this natural closeness with what I do? I have already stood against my sisters this evening, and I'm afraid it will get worse.” She paused, and her skin trembled, but she said, “I could send you back to Crater Town. We have enough near family there to shelter you.”

“No,” said Res immediately. “We came to help you, Mother. How can we abandon you?”

You would not be abandoning me. You would be saving yourselves.“I may truly need your help, my own. There may be questions I cannot ask and places I cannot go.”

“We are your own,” said Theia. “We will stand with you.”

Praeis hugged her daughters close and they stood like that for a long time and she closed her eyes so that she could stop her own tears.


Armetrethe looked through the slit window into the dark yard. She could just barely see Praeis and her daughters standing and watching the sky. Senejess stepped up behind her and watched over her shoulder. Their daughters were busy clearing away bowls and pushing the furniture back so they could lay out the sleeping mats and blankets for the night.

“She has not changed,” said Armetrethe. Her voice was low, but none of her anger was disguised.

“No.” Senejess laid a hand on her warm, dry arm. “Did you think she would?”

“I hoped.” Armetrethe's stump flailed briefly. “For a moment, I thought she would open her heart.”

Senejess smoothed down the skin on Armetrethe's good arm. “So did I. But we must keep our eyes open to what she really is.” She bared her teeth for a moment. “She is the loyal daughter of our Majestic Sisters.”

Armetrethe leaned heavily against Senejess. “When did I begin to see devotion to the Queens as a failing, Sister?”

“When Praeis let them order her to sacrifice Urisk Island,” answered Senejess softly. “The same time I did.”





Chapter IV



Arron Hagopian stared down into the lumps of shadows that daylight would change into the chvintz Rvi, the Defenders’ quarter of the city. It was a clear morning. The late stars still shone over the balcony. Their light glinted on his helmet. Dawn was just a thin, white line on the horizon. This Earth was a little bigger than the Earth he'd come from, so its days were a little longer. Even after ten years, he still got up outrageously early.

The voices and clatter of predawn traffic filled the warm morning breeze. Getesaph called back and forth to each other, raucous, belligerent, and sometimes mind-bogglingly rude, but peaceful in a very city sort of way.

Should be inside. That data'll be done cooking by now. I need a transmission in the pipe. No sense giving the funding panel extra ammunition.

He didn't move. He gripped the balcony rail with his gloved hands and leaned over it, determined to soak up as much of the early-morning noise as he could hold.

One for the head mechanics. How many cases come in because they've got it bad for a noisy, smoggy, plague-ravaged, glow-in-the-dark planet? His gaze drifted up to the stars again.And what's Lynn going to say about it?

He'd had no idea he was ever going to hear from her again. They'd dissolved into individual silences almost immediately after college. He certainly hadn't expected a hy-write from her. He'd stared at it for so long on the comm screen at the outpost, he'd practically memorized it.

Arron:

I wasn't sure what kind of facilities you'd have there, so you'll excuse the lack of splash on this. I'm coming in with the Bioverse team. I'm a manager, and they've got me working on the evacuation. “Relocation” is what we're supposed to call it. Either way. Some brilliance in the stratosphere decided we can't hire planetside Humans, but I could use a brain dump from someone who's been there before you take off for Whoknows.

Hope you're willing,

Lynn Nussbaumer

Lynn. Lynn had become a corper, and she was on her way with the people who were destroying his life.

“Scholar Arron?”

Arron turned. The Dayisen Rual, Lareet and Umat, stood silhouetted in the arched doorway.

Arron smiled. “Dayisen Lareet, Dayisen Umat.” Dayisen was a rank somewhere around the level of colonel, except that it belonged to the entire family. Lareet and Umat were the tvkesh chvaniff, the outside sisters for the family Rual. Their children were raised primarily by their sisters and their mother. Their job was to make sure the family was fed, housed, and protected. “Morning's light looks good on you.”