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She grabbed me by the shoulders and moved as if she wanted me to turn. She couldn’t move me, but I turned to face her now. I took her by the wrists and moved her grip to my waist. I still wanted her holding tight to me, and not just because it felt good. The bubble could get hit, though I doubted Thuliak would risk hurting a woman just to get me. Still, I wanted her holding tight all the same.
She met my eyes. “I don’t know, Kaav. Everything feels so upside down right now. I don’t know what my old crew will do. I can’t know what they’re thinking. I’m on the wrong side of tainted, and you said they’re all going to get tainted no matter what? Because of the Breeding Swarm eventually landing on Eden, right?”
I nodded. “The Khetar will respect your High Command, but only if we truly believe they are representing the will of the women of Eden. If the individual women themselves want to breed with us, we won’t let High Command stop that.
“I just can’t imagine High Command allowing another alien back on theRib. Not after Thuliak tainted three of us so quickly and completely.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’m opening a channel for you when you’re ready to talk to them. Do you know what you’ll say?”
“I should be able to think of something. You’re not going to hurt any of them, are you?”
I shook my head. “Khetar will hurt each other in a Breeding Swarm, but we’llneverhurt a woman.”
“Okay, open the channel then.”
There was a shift in the air as we connected to the human ship’s comms.
“Hello?” a light, whispery voice said, “declare yourself immediately.”
“It’s Tainted Sojourner,” Weapons said.
“Oh,” the voice replied, clipped and short. “Sojourner. This is Comms Eve. Are you okay? Aside from being tainted. I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you. ”
“Um,” I said, “the Khetar took me onto their ship. They didn’t hurt me, but I thought…I thought I could help Eden more by coming back. By telling High Command everything I saw. You don’t have to talk to me. Just put me through to High Command.”
“Good idea. Let me get Chef.”
“Chef?” I asked. “Like a woman who cooks food?”
“She must have meant to sayChief,” Weapons said. “Crew Chief Athena. The signal feels pretty garbled, not all the words are going through clearly.”
Another woman came onto the comms. “Weapons?”
“Tainted Sojourner,” she corrected. “No offense, Chef, but why am I talking to you? Are you okay?”
“Not really,” she said. “High Command put me in charge. I want from Chef to Chief. An unlikely promotion, even though it’s only one letter different.”
Why had they put the chef in charge? Our packships made food for us. The idea of having dedicated crew members doing something so trivially easy made very little sense to me, but I had to remember that humans were much less advanced than us. Their ships must not have been able to make food from raw fabrication particles.
“So you’re High Command now?” Weapons asked. “Just like that?”
“I very much wish I weren’t,” Chef said. “But Thuliak is sending these holos down to the surface. It’s holos of big Khetar men touching their big Khetar dingdongs. They are apparently much more realistic than any holograms humans can make, and they’re tainting entire cities. Apparently High Command had some kind of sealed contingency plan for a mass-tainting event, which has now been unsealed, and every last lesbian on Eden has been drafted into High Command. We’re immune.Mostly.
“Mostly?”
Her voice cracked. “Apparently even some lesbians are getting tainted. I’m pretty sure I’m fully immune. The idea of a Khetar cock inside me gives me the heebie-jeebies, but who knows.”
I checked the Lexikon to figure out what a lesbian was. I smirked when I realized that even certain lesbians were switching teams for Khetar seed.
“I met someone recently,” Weapons said, and I squeezed her arm, as if to warn her. She locked eyes with me and smiled. “He promised to never lie to me, and it feels very wrong to lie to you now, Crew Chief Hypatia.”
“Please just call me Chef,” she said. “At least in private.”
My chest tightened. I wanted Weapons to lie. To say whatever she had to for this woman to open the airlock for us. Of course I could blow it open to force entry, but I was counting on being invited in by the women as protection fromWrathand from Thuliak. Still, if Weapons thought being honest was our best shot, then I’d trust her. She seemed to get along well with this lesbian, and honesty might buy her some serious goodwill.
“I’m with a Khetar, Chef,” Weapons said, “and we need to get into the airlock. Faster is better.”
“I can’t let a Khetar onto the ship.”
