Playing God(9)

Lynn walked up to a polite distance and waited for Praeis to acknowledge her.

At the moment, all three of the Family Shin were dressed for indoors, and for Humans. They wore matching straight-cut robes of water-patterned rose fabric over their swaddling clean-suits. Egg-shaped, air-filter helmets covered their heads, leaving enough room for their ears to move freely.

In a few hours, Lynn and David would be dressed in the familiar Human version of the clean-suit for the trip down to the planet's surface.

Resaime, the broader of the two daughters, turned an ear toward Lynn. Her gaze followed, along with her sister Theiareth's, and her mother's.

“Lynn,” said Praeis, turning all the way around. “Human behavior in the Dedelphi system?”

“It's still a Human habitat.” Lynn walked up to a more Dedelphi-proper distance. “What do you think?” She gestured toward the Ur.

“From here it looks like a work of art.” Praeis gazed at the gleaming domes and the toy cities inside. “I'm having a hard time imagining living in there, but it is beautiful.” She paused. “Perhaps it will change our minds about space.”

“The Great Families don't like space?” Lynn's brow rose. “I mean, I knew you didn't have any ships, but I thought that was because …”

Praeis waggled her ears gently at Lynn. “Because we lacked the technology? No.” She sighed. “A few of the Families, at one time or another, developed spacegoing capabilities. Unfortunately, they had a tendency to use them to drop rocks on their neighbors.” Praeis's ears drooped. “Whole islands got obliterated. After the first few incidents, Families began shooting down anything that looked like it was trying to make orbit.” She turned her ears back toward the screen. “Our engineers are still taught all the theories, and we do occasionally launch very disposable spy satellites when we need …” The sentence trailed off.

“We'll still be under glass in the ships,” said Theiareth, changing the subject. She was more slender than her sister, and about a centimeter shorter. “It's going to be strange down on All-Cradle, with an open sky but no clean-suits.”

“Travel should be a broadening experience,” Lynn told her sagely. “A time to gather new experiences and make new friends.”

“Speaking of which.” Resaime cocked both ears toward Lynn. “Have you spoken to your friend yet, Lynn?”

“Arron?” Lynn shook her head. “I sent him a hywrite before we left, but I haven't heard back yet.”

After seeing Arron in the treaty ceremony recording, Lynn had spun out every thread she could think of to find out what he was doing on All-Cradle. Not every answer that came back was a comfortable one.

Res still had her ears tilted expectantly. “It's been a long time,” Lynn said, trying to sound casual. “And he's tied some knots in the web that say he's not exactly … in agreement with Bioverse's approach toward the bioremediation on Dede—All-Cradle. He might not want to talk to me now that I'm on the team.”

“Well,” said Praeis, without taking her attention off the Ur, “like the rest of us, he'll have to adjust.” The skin under her gloves rippled. “You'll have to excuse my distance, Lynn. It's been a long time since I've been home and—”

Lynn waved her hand. “Don't worry about it.”

Privately, she was wondering if Praeis was still carrying her letter from her sisters in her pocket. A month before Lynn and David were scheduled to leave for All-Cradle, Praeis had called Lynn at home and asked if Bioverse could be prevailed upon to give her and her daughters a ride.

“What's happened?” Lynn had asked.

Praeis lifted a few sheets of the fragile paper the Dedelphi used for keeping records. “According to my sisters, I have been pardoned, and ordered by the Queens-of-All to return home.”

She'd sounded bewildered, as if she didn't know how to feel. Lynn couldn't blame her. Praeis had never given her the details, but Lynn had always understood that Praeis had presided over some kind of military disaster that had gotten an inordinate number of t'Therians killed. As a result, she was graciously allowed to flee for her life.

Lynn shook herself out of her thoughts. “I shouldn't keep you standing here. I know you've got to get ready to head on down. I just wanted to say good luck. You have my addresses for when we're planetside?”

“Yes, we do.” Praeis's mouth quirked up. “I expect to see you tearing about my homeland in a day or two with a cow switch to herd us all into place.”

“Nah, that won't be for another week yet.” Lynn grinned at her. “Take care of yourself, all right, Praeis? And get hooked up fast. How am I going to handle things without you to correct me?”