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“It’s not going up, though,” he said. “Steady levels.”
She circled her tongue counterclockwise once, then paused. She felt light-headed. Short of breath. One of the artificial glands leaking out, maybe, in preparation for the flood. Ren was speaking, but she couldn’t hear him. The sounds of her own breath and the blood in her ears was too loud.
I have to kill him. Her fingers were jittering. Her heart raced. He turned to her, blew a breath out his nostrils. He wasn’t a person. He was just a sack of meat with a little electricity. She could do this. For her father. For her family. It needed to be done.
When Ren spoke, his voice seemed to come from a distance.
“Was denkt tu? You want to make the call, you want me to?”
Her mind moved too quickly and too slowly. He was asking if they should alert the Seung Unabout the bomb. That was what he meant.
“Ren?” she said. Her voice sounded small, querulous. It was the voice of someone much younger than she was. Someone who was very frightened, or very sad. Concern bloomed in his expression, drew his brows together.
“Hey? You all right, boss?”
She touched the screen with the tip of her finger.
“Look again,” she said softly. “Look close.”
He turned, bending toward the data as if there were something there to discover. She looked at his bent neck like she might have looked at a statue in a museum: an object. Nothing more. She circled her tongue against the roof of her mouth twice, and calm descended on her.
His neck popped when it broke, the cartilaginous disks ripping free, the bundle of nerves and co
Fortunately, there was only a little blood.
Chapter Twelve: A
Two hours into an interfaith prayer meeting, and for the very first time in her life, A
At first, the meeting had been pleasant. Father Michel had a lovely deep voice that had mellowed with age like fine wine. His lengthy and heartfelt prayer for God’s guidance to be upon those who would study the Ring had sent shivers down her spine. He was followed by an elder of the Church of Humanity Ascendent who led the group through several meditations and breathing exercises that left A
But after two hours, even the most heartfelt and poetic of the prayers had begun to wear on her. She began counting the little plastic domes that hid fire-suppression turrets. She’d gotten good at spotting them since the attempted suicide at the first party. She found her mind wandering off to think about the message she’d send to Nono later. The chair she sat in had a very faint vibration that she could almost hear if she remained very still. It must have been the ship’s massive drive, and as A
Hank Cortez was, of course, scheduled to go last. In the weeks and months A
It didn’t really bother her. No matter how egalitarian a group might start out, someone always wound up taking a leadership role. Better Doctor Hank than herself.
When the Neo-Wiccan priestess currently at the podium finally finished her rites, Doctor Hank was nowhere to be seen. A
But no. Doctor Hank made his entrance into the auditorium trailed by a camera crew and bulled his way up to the podium like an actor taking the stage. He flashed his gleaming smile across the audience, making sure to end with the section the camera people had set up in.
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “let us bow our heads and offer thanks to the Almighty and seek His counsel and guidance as we draw ever closer to the end of this historic journey.”
He managed to rattle on that way for another twenty minutes.
A
After, A
While they waited for their food to arrive, Tilly popped a lozenge in her mouth and chewed it. The faint smell of nicotine and mint filled the air. No smoking on military ships, of course.
“How’d your thing go?” Tilly asked, playing with her silver-inlaid lozenge box and looking around the room. She was wearing a pants and blouse combination that probably cost more than A
“The prayer meeting?” A
Tilly looked at her, the honesty getting her attention. “God, don’t I know it. No one can blather on like a holy man with a trapped audience. Well, maybe a politician.”
Their food arrived, a navy boy acting as waiter for the VIP civilians. A