"You've done a lot of good work here," Eva said.
"I know. That's part of the problem. They need me here."
"Just because you've done a good job here doesn't mean you have to stay forever. There are other doctors who would also do good work here. Just because you stop doing something, it doesn't mean you've failed. Sometimes, it just means you've finished."
"I guess I've been waiting for Rodney to be finished," Jennifer said. "But I don't know if that's ever going to happen. And I know I shouldn't even be worrying about this now, because we're about to be under attack by the Wraith, and my relationship problems aren't a priority."
Eva shrugged. "What would you be doing if you weren't sitting here talking to me?"
"I don't know. Maybe taking a shower. We're pretty much set for tomorrow. I've triaged the patients to be transferred back to Earth, and we've packed up nonessentials in case they decide on a total evacuation. And we're pretty much always stocked for an apocalyptic disaster."
"Would you rather talk, or take that shower?"
"I think talk," Jennifer said. "I'll risk having to face the Wraith without my hair washed."
"All right, then," Eva said. "What do you want? Never mind what Rodney wants for a minute. What do you want?"
"I want a different kind of job," Jennifer said. "And I want to be able to figure out what that should be without making someone miserable. And when I do get married, someday, I want it to be when I'm ready to settle down and have kids somewhere that's not a war zone. Maybe that could even be Colorado Springs. Or Area 51. Both of them get invaded by aliens a lot less often."
"True enough."
"And when I thought that was what Rodney wanted, I figured, okay, we'll go ahead and move on to the part where we live in Nevada and have a cat and a baby and neighbors who probably aren't going to all die. If that's not on the table, then I don't think I'm ready to go home yet. I'm still okay with working in a war zone. It's just my actual job here that's driving me crazy."
"Then maybe you should think about how you could change that," Eva said.
"In all my copious spare time?"
"Try to make some time," Eva said. "I'll grant you tomorrow is probably all booked up."
"Yeah, I think the Wraith have penciled themselves in. My life crises will have to wait."
"Once we're through this, you can talk to Rodney about what you both want in the future. And that includes whether you want a future together or apart."
"You mean if he's not still brainwashed and carrying out a secret plot to kill us."
"If that's the case, then obviously we'll want to address that problem first," Eva said dryly.
Jennifer breathed a laugh. "Good plan," she said. "I think I'm going to see if I can take that shower."
"Good luck," Eva said, and hoped they'd all have it in the day to come.
The blade's face was smooth and old, but his voice was sharp. "The time has come," he said, the transmission crackling faintly on the screens of the hiveship Promised Return, "to make a choice. Will you stand with Queen Death against the Lanteans?"
Waterlight took a deep breath. At her side she felt Thorn stir, her Father who stood in the place of a consort until she was grown.
"We are in no condition to engage in battle," Thorn temporized. "Our ship is in poor condition, and we are far shorthanded since the war with the Replicators. We would be of little assistance to so great an alliance."
The blade snarled. "That may be. But it is your loyalty in question, and your courage. Are you too much of a coward to face the Lanteans? Is that true, Thorn?"
She felt his humiliation, the slow burn of disgrace that accompanied him, a consort who had not died for his queen and lived yet, branded coward and with nothing to do about it.
"It is not Thorn's decision," she said clearly, lifting her head, and the blade's eyes fell upon her though he had previously held her of little account. "I am the Queen, and I choose." Thorn moved, but she spoke on, her eyes on the Old One. "I reject alliance with Queen Death," Waterlight said. "I stand instead with my sister, Queen Steelflower."
At that he did hiss, his face contorting. "You will regret that, little queen. Death will drink your overlady's life, and she will not spare you in your turn. I name you renegade! None shall succor you or treat with you."
"Except my sister and her alliance," Waterlight said. Anger welled up in her, fierce and proud. "I do not fear you or that harridan you serve!"
Her father's voice was sharp in her mind. “Waterlight, mind what you do.” He feared. But she did not. His fears were for her safety, but if one cannot spend one's own life in pursuit of what is right, what can one spend?
“What manner of queen would I be,” she said to Thorn, “were I to yield to this?”
The Old One sneered. "What else could I expect of a hive such as yours? Criminals, who trespassed upon the oldest rules, creating monsters as that madman Michael did! It will be well when your line is snuffed out."
"Not while I live," Waterlight said, and with a mind touch she instructed the ship to cut the transmission. The last sight was his snarl, but his retort was lost. She dismissed him as though he were lowly indeed.
Thorn took a deep breath. “Daughter,” he said, and his mind was filled with warring fear and pride.
“Death would not have spared us anyway,” Waterlight said. “Better to defy her openly and perhaps we will draw some to us who hate her. It could not make it worse.”
“It could,” Thorn said. “The Old One will not let this be forgotten.”
“It would not be anyway,” Waterlight said. She paced to the other side of the chamber, kicking her skirts before her, too long and too confining. “What did he mean about Lastlight, who he called Michael? About criminals?”
Thorn sighed. “A long story, and worth little. It is simply one of those things that any hive does not wish to speak of.”
“It is my hive, and I wish to know. I have the right to know.”
He sighed again. “Before the last hibernation, before you were born, your mother had a brother.” Thorn went to the screens, bending over the control boards. “He was a cleverman, brilliant but headstrong. Had he but tempered his genius with sense he might have been Master of Sciences Biological. But instead he decided to conduct an experiment, one that has been forbidden to us since the earliest days of our people.”
“He created monsters?”
“He mingled his own genetic material with that of humans. Not sharing the Gift of Life as one may with ardent worshippers, but giving them a part of ourselves, partially transforming them. And that is forbidden.” Thorn did not look at her. “That is the thing that is forbidden — to change human into Wraith, the greatest crime we can name, at least by the old ways. He gave them our genes, our gifts, and then he released them to breed.”
Waterlight caught her breath. “What happened?”
“Your mother had to stop him. She closed his testing facility and destroyed his notes so that no other could follow him, but it was too late. His specimens had spread to a dozen worlds, and there was no way to seek them out or identify them. They did not look Wraith, you see. And yet he defied her. He tried it again, and that time she had to kill him.” Thorn bent over the board more closely. “He was her brother and she loved him. And so it fell to her to kill him for his crimes. The sorrow never left her.”
“Oh” Waterlight closed her mind so that he would not see her horror and think her weak. No doubt her mother would have told her in time, a disgrace in their line, even if it had been attended to. “What happened to the humans?” she asked.