Neci sighed, “Choose one.”
“Why do you look like me?” Syn blurted out.
Neci laughed, and Taji slapped the table. Taji barked, “You look like us. Don’t confuse the order of things.” She jammed her dinner knife in Syn’s direction. “Don’t forget that. Real important.”
“Well?” Syn asked.
“What do you remember, Syn?” Neci asked.
Syn held her hands out, palms up, gesturing at the others all together. “I need answers. Please. Can you explain this?”
Kerwen leaned over and placed her hand on Syn’s shoulder. “She’s not trying to pry information out of you.”
“I’m trying to figure out what I need to explain and how much you’ve pieced together on your own. But I’ll start at the beginning.” Neci leaned in toward Syn, “My first memory was throwing up when the cover to the crèche bay opened up. The lights and the sound. Just a bit too much.”
“I puked too,” Kerwen said and Taji nodded in agreement. A mutual experience.
“The crèche? You woke up in the crèche?” Syn asked. Her eyes were wide, and she was leaning forward. They had described a hidden part of her life. Of the ship. She remembered waking up alone. There had been no one in the white room at all. No one there when she left. “Before me? How long have you been here?”
Pigeon spoke, “In our own crèches.”
Neci gave her a sharp look, and Pigeon sat back in her chair, falling into shadow.
Above them, the clouds rumbled. Each of them looked up. There was no rain, yet, but a timer had just been set for their conversation.
“Does it rain here?” Syn asked.
Kerwen gave the first laugh and the others followed. “Does it rain? Hell, yes, it rains.”
Neci leaned in, “You said ‘here.’ As opposed to where?”
Syn felt her palms sweat. “I’m just new here. I…”
“No. That was a comparison. When you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences. Here versus there. So where is there?” Neci asked.
Syn bristled. She pushed her chair back. If she was to run, she didn’t want her feet under the table.
At the other end, the lumbering Taji noticed and shifted to spring after Syn if she fled.
Syn stammered. “I woke up in a crèche. I watched the videos. Did you watch the videos?”
Kerwen, eager to calm the moment, said, “The dolt Captain Pote.”
Syn bristled at that. She had loved Captain Pote and his family. She could remember racing down to the Disc hoping to meet him and the disappointment that rushed in after. But this wasn’t the time for offense. “Yes. Captain Pote. They showed rain on Earth.”
“Earth’s a myth,” Pigeon said.
Syn turned to the girl. “No it isn’t.”
“Back to the truth. Where is there?” Neci asked, her voice a bit lower now.
“I meant Earth. Here versus Earth.”
Neci raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
Syn gave a slight nod.
Seeming to accept that answer, Neci turned the question. “Then where have you been?”
“The needle. I came from the needle,” Syn said, “Is that how you got here?”
Neci stayed silent.
Kerwen glanced at the Crimson Queen. “Give her some more answers.”
Neci sat back and looked between Kerwen and Syn. She shot a look over at Taji. After a long, quiet moment, she said, “Yes. We came from the needle. All of us came down.”
“The four of you?” Syn asked.
“Forty-one,” Neci said.
Syn felt her world disappear. Forty-one? She grew a bit dizzy with the information. “Forty-one? And they’re all…” She motioned between them, palms up, hands in a slow swirl.
Neci nodded. “Like us. Just like each of us. I know the word for twins. Triplets. Quadruplets.”
Taji said, “Quintuplets.”
“What’s the word for forty-two copies of the same person?” Neci said.
“Forty-two?” Syn asked and then realized they were counting her in that number. Syn answered, “I don’t know.”
Neci smiled, “Eve. The word is Eve.”
“Like in the Garden? Adam?” Syn acted ignorant, but she had heard the word before. In Captain Pote’s initial videos. She thought it was a term of endearment. She hadn’t realized it had a deeper meaning.
“In a way. What do you know of that story?”
“There was a snake,” Syn said.
Pigeon snorted, “There’s always a snake.”
Syn continued, “God was angry. They had sinned.”
Neci shook her head. “Why were they there?”
“In the Garden?”
“In the Garden.”
Syn thought. “They were to take care of it, I think. It doesn’t really say. It’s just nonsense.”
“You may call it nonsense if you like, but it’s quite informed nonsense,” Neci smiled and ran her hand across her abdomen, resting it below her navel. “They were to take care of the Garden. Just like what we were to do. But we never made it to the Garden. Instead, God decided to dump us into Hell. How do you think the story would’ve turned out after that? What if instead of kicking them out of the Garden he had sent them to Hell?” Neci stood. She snapped her fingers and one of the burlys behind her turned and left the room. She continued, “I wonder if we would think of Hell as Hell. Maybe it would’ve been a different place with Eve on the throne.” She walked around the table and picked up an apple then took a small bite. A bit of juice ran down her chin. “We’re in Hell, Syn. And we took over.”
Syn shook her head. “I’m not getting it…”
Kerwen sighed. “We are the Eves, Syn. Each of us. We were created to explore another world. Cast out of Earth. Shot into the void. You know what Olorun is?”
Syn felt a bit of stress drain from her tight muscles. She nodded. “I know about Olorun. The ship. We’re on Olorun.” Without thinking about it, she leaned forward and picked a piece of meat up and chewed.
Kerwen gave a look at Neci that said, See, I knew she was hungry.
Neci picked up a chair that was off to the side, near a pole, and planted it next to Taji. She had moved to the other side of the table but had moved much closer to Syn who sat near to Kerwen. “Have you ever talked to Olorun?”
Syn was about to mention that Blip had but she hadn’t. That wouldn’t work. Instead, she said, “No. I didn’t know he could talk.”
Neci stared at her and then whispered, “Liar.”
Taji muttered, “She. The bitch above is a she.”
A chill went through Syn. “I’ve never talked to Olorun. I promise.”
Kerwen sighed. “Olorun is on its way to another planet. But the wonderful people who had inhabited this ship…” A look went between Taji and Kerwen and then both glanced at Neci. Only Pigeon kept her eyes forward. Syn thought she saw a brief tinge of disgust roll through Pigeon’s features, but if it had, it was fleeting and gone now. Kerwen continued, “They went a bit crazy.”
Taji spoke up, “They killed each other. And burnt the place down.”
Neci picked up a piece of meat from Taji’s plate. “This here is a gift, Syn. Do you know when the last time we had meat was?”
Pigeon twitched and said, “There were five of us before that.”
Neci ignored her and continued, “The idiots torched this place and then managed to wake us up. It was tough at first. The brutes who remained,” she nodded at the burlys, “were numerous and took many of our sisters. Disease. Starvation. One by one, they died. We are all that’s left of that forty-one. Until you came along.” She stood back up and picked up her chair from a notch on its back and moved it toward the far side of Syn, placing Syn between Kerwen and Neci. Neci continued, “Now I wonder if there are more of our sisters up there. In the needle. In other parts of the ship.”