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“The Hive Mind will allow us to poll every individual woman on Eden instantly,” Kaav said, “I don’t understand how it works, but it sends out many tiny machines, but they are very powerful and can think—”
Hypatia nodded and waved a hand. “I get it. Nano machines of some kind. And they can poll us?”
Kaav nodded. “It might seem aggressive to you. Just totally going around High Command and letting each woman decide, but we’ve existed for millions of years. We know this way is better. We will only do what your women ask us to do. Knowing your women, Crew Chief Hypatia, what do you think they will want us to do?”
She nodded. “And what if I tell High Command to interpret sending all these machines at us as an act of war? How do you trust the results your machines give? What if it’s all rigged?”
“They’re not rigged. We’ll have ways to prove it exhaustively if you like. For example, we’ll have video and audio recordings of each woman answering her polling questions. You could cross-check with a subset of women to make sure we didn’t rig the results. Anyway, if you were to take it as an act of war, you would quickly and badly lose any war against us. We would spend most of our effort minimizing casualties and damage taken on your end. It’s likely that removing a few of the highest layers of High Command, specifically immune lesbians such as yourself, would end the war within a few hours. This is the part I meant for you not to take as a threat, by the way.”
“Understood,” she said. “It sounds a lot like a threat though, Kaav.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I’m just having the Hive Mind calculate out for me the best way to quickly end a war with Eden, and this is what it’s giving me.”
“So the Hive Mind is threatening me then?”
Kaav shrugged. He told me he’d spoken directly to the Hive Mind, which was not meant to be possible. Was the Hive Mind talking to him now? Or did he really not know the answer?
“You had the right read on me, Kaav,” Hypatia said, “I’m very logical. It doesn’t really matter if you’re threatening me or not. What matters is that you’ve had a million-year head start on us, and wewouldlose a war with you. Your Hive Mind is smart to find a way to win the war that directly involves killing me. It’s hard not to interpret that as a threat though.”
Kaav laughed. “Maybe ask yourself why the straight women are sealed off, all safe and snug, while you and women like you are being brought out onto the front lines. We’re not threatening you, Chief, we’re simply finding the path of least resistance. Blame High Command for putting you in the line of fire.”
I started to wonder about Chef Hypatia. I wondered if shehadbeen High Command, but they’d figured out her secret and made her a chef. Maybe they’d always had this kind of plan in their back pocket if a male colony ever managed to get too close to us en mass. Let a few lesbians get high up enough in High Command, then re-assign them and hold them as sleeper agents? I’d have to ask her about that. Maybe after High Command fell apart, she’d actually be allowed to tell me.
