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“The human female can determine if he’s dead with just her fingers?” someone asked.
Eve looked up wide-eyed. “If the Hivemind is really gone…you’re all going to have to learn a lot. The Hivemind knew you were too reliant on it, that’s why it gave you these, uh, rewire packets?”
I crouched down next to Eve. “Show me how you know he’s dead.”
She took hold of my wrist and moved my hand. She pressed my fingers down onto his neck.
I pressed into his neck. “What am I supposed to be feeling?”
She sighed, then took my other hand and brought it to her own neck. It was impossible to keep my cock from going fully erect as I touched the warm, supple flesh of her throat, but I did my best to keep my mind focused on the task at hand. Stop pressing. Just relax your fingers. Loosen your grip. Now, do you feel the little movement? That’s called a pulse. It means my heart is beating.”
I let go of the grip I had on Genkar’s neck. I held my breath to make sure I really wasn’t feeling a thing, but I was bloody certain there was no pulsing.
“I see,” I said, “teach this to the others.”
I stepped back, and I let Eve start showing the bridge crew how to check for a pulse. I had a bad feeling we’d need this skill in the coming times. When I saw Eve about to bring Ulrak’s fingers to her throat, I lunged forward and pulled him away. “No one touches her! Practice on each other! Not on her!”
Eve glared at me, but the Khetar men started touching each others neck’s and comparing them to the lifeless corpse of Genkar.
Eve took hold of my wrist. I lowered my head down so she could whisper into my ear. “Tschenkar, I don’t know how the Hivemind works exactly, but that rewire packet just…glitched out. Goddess! You almost drank that thing! And Genkar! He’s just dead? Are you going to do anythin—”
I put a finger to her lips. “Calm yourself, Eve. A wave is about to crash down on us. If we get over it, Genkar will be grieved. For now, focus on the wave, Love.”
I saw her strength again as she swallowed down all that chaos she was feeling. Then got all “engineery” again.
“The rewire packets not working means that we’re in an even worse spot than the contingency plan assumed we would be.”
“How do you figure?”
“It was like you said. The Hivemind is billions of years old. It doesn’t just disappear. Even in its contingency plan, it assumed the rewire packets were going to work. It probably assumed it would always still be present enough to operate the rewire packets. Those were probably some kind of nanotech, something that put lots of little machines into your brain and then rewired it so you could perform your role. Temporarily, I assume, until the Hivemind was back.”
“That packet rewired his brain all right,” I said, but then shaking my head. “Sorry. I’m listening. Go on.”
“It did,” she said. “The packet just put a lot of brainless machines into his brain that rewired it randomly. Scrambled it. Nothing the Hivemind used to operate is going to keep working. Do you think the Hivemind designed these packships to be self-sufficient enough to run without it? When the rewire packets don’t even—”
“I understand,” I said, putting my finger on her lips again. The tidal wave had already hit us, we were just drowning now. But I was a scion, and I had to find any way I could to get my pack—and my woman—to the surface to catch some fucking air.
“We need to land on Eden,” I shouted out across the bridge. “As soon as possible.”
Eve grabbed hold of my arm. When she was like this—fucking Engineer Eve—she was suddenly my most valuable new piece of the bridge crew. I knew it was worth stopping to listen now.
“Tschenkar, how many Khetar were on Eden?”
“Tens of thousands,” I said, “maybe more. Why?”
She pointed out to my bridge crew. Some of the toughest, most capable fucks in the whole pack, and they all looked like they’d just shit their own diapers. Panic. Fear. Incompetence. That’s what I saw when I looked out at my men.
“How prepared are the Khetar to fight without the Hivemind? Probably even without your packships?”
My bloody bridge crew looked was the top of my pack, and I was seeing true fear inallof their eyes for the first time in my life. My eyes must have looked the same to them. If they saw that fear in my eyes, they’d feel it too.
I had to convince myself I wasn’t going to drown. I had to save Eve, that was all it took. Ihadto save her, and I would.
I washed the fear fro me, and I looked my crew over again. I’d give them a pep-talk later. Let their fear simmer a tad bit longer, then I’d look at them with my eyes—free of fear—and persuade them to see things my way.
“Yeah,” she said, continuing her argument, “And you saw what my women are doing down there on the surface. Worshipping Thuliak’s holograms. Things seem very fucked, but you’re a scion. And I’m an engineer. What do I know?”
“I am a scion,” I said, “which means I need to fix my bridge crew before I answer that.”
