“Yes, billions died,” Pam said with a brilliant smile, “but you won’t, nor your children. We’ve returned in time to ensure that, I think, even with the perversions that have been added to the environment. You and your children will survive and evolve.”
He could scarcely get words out. “And… and my mother…”
“Oh, yes, we’ll save her and any other remnants of the old species that we come across, anybody that gets to this ‘farm.’ At least, we’ll save them to the extent that non-germ-line alteration is possible. We’ll rehabilitate their genes so they don’t join the billions of obsolete dead. Yet. Of course we’ll do that.” Her voice took on tones of reproach.
“After all, Cord, we’re human, too.”
Uncle DeWayne eventually came out of the big house. It was full dark now, and he carried a powerful flashlight. These hoarded relics were usually saved for emergencies. DeWayne illuminated the ship, a straight-backed dignified black man with gray hair, and spoke without raising his voice. “My name is DeWayne Freeman. I’m addressing the pribir in the ship. You’re welcome at this farm. Come out of the ship and inside, please. No one will try to harm you if you don’t harm us, and everyone will be grateful for your help.”
“It’s about time,” Pete said. He’d returned fifteen minutes ago from wherever he’d been. Cord had the impression that he and Pam were communicating furiously, although they neither spoke nor looked at each other.
Pam made unreplicable sounds at the door and it opened. Cord emerged behind them.
The flashlight caught them full in the eyes and DeWayne courteously lowered it. The upward light cast weird shadows on DeWayne’s lined face, so that to Cord he suddenly looked more alien than the pribir. Cord looked away.
The only people in the great room were Dr. Wilkins, Emily, and Jody. How had Uncle DeWayne persuaded the others to retreat to the back rooms or the other houses? Or maybe Jody had, he was supposed to be the boss of the farm. Jody, who had never seen a pribir, never been smelled to by one, looked both apprehensive and curious. Emily, who had been aboard the ship, looked as if she was trying hard not to glare. Dr. Wilkins was expressionless.
“Hello, Emily,” Pam said. “You haven’t changed very much, dear.”
Emily scowled.
Pete said genially, “You must be Scott Wilkins.” He held out his hand and Dr. Wilkins took it. Pete looked expectantly at Jody.
Dr. Wilkins said, “This is Jody Romero Ridley, the son of Theresa Romero, who was at Andrews Air Force Base with me. Jody runs this farm.”
Pete and Pam smiled at Jody without interest. Pam said, “Where’s Lillie, Scott? Cord says she’s contracted one of your perverse bioweapons.” She pronounced the word with distaste.
How strange, Cord thought somewhere in the depths of his dazed mind. She can’t stand the thought of bioweapons, but she doesn’t care at all about the billions they killed.
“Yes,” Dr. Wilkins said, “Lillie is sick. The micro is out of her system. It started prion conversion to cause an accelerated form of fatal familial insomnia. It—”
” ‘Prions’?” Pam said. “We didn’t learn that word from Rafe or Emily. We’ll do our own analysis. Bring Lillie aboard the ship.”
“No,” Emily said, and Cord saw that she hadn’t been able to help herself. Were the memories of pribir ship that bad? For his mother, too? Emily pressed her lips together tightly and looked at the wall.
“Jody,” Dr. Wilkins said, “tell Mike to bring Lillie out.”
“Oh, Mike is here, too,” Pete said, sounding pleased. “You really must give us a complete list of our old friends.”
Emily started to leave the room.
“Emily,” Dr. Wilkins said, “come back. We both have to go aboard, too. To learn.”
Pam said doubtfully, “It’ll be very crowded.”
Pete added, “And you won’t learn anything, anyway. You couldn’t possibly build our equipment. That’s why we’re building the alterations right into your genes, to compensate for your ignorance. You know that.”
Emily slammed the door behind her.
Mike appeared, carrying Lillie. Cord felt tears prick his eyelids. Lillie was so thin her elbows were visible knobs. Much of her hair had fallen out. She was asleep, or drugged.
“Well, good heavens,” Pam said.
Pete added, “It appears our immune engineering was inadequate.”
Pam turned on him. “Who expected them to fuck up the environment this badly? The only genetic thing they are good at is perversions. All right, Mike, bring her along.” She stamped out, followed by Pete, Mike, and Dr. Wilkins.
Cord went with them. He couldn’t help himself. The procession went into darkness thick as mud, without DeWayne’s flashlight. Pete made a noise and the ship began to glow, guiding them. The door opened.
This time they went through the blank room and into one that made Cord blink. Machines lined all the walls —or were they machines? No, they were the actual walls, studded with projections and indentations, and as Cord watched, the walls slithered. Not slithering. Breathing.
Not breathing. Some other movement, unnamable but unmistakable. The walls were alive.
Pete made another sound and a wall indentation grew longer, higher, deeper. “There,” Pete said to Mike.
Mike stood unmoving.
“Oh, for—” Pam said, and effortlessly took Lillie from Mike’s arms. He tightened his grip for a moment, then let Lillie go. Pam laid her in the indentation and its back wall began to mold itself around her.
Cord broke and ran. This was not right. This was not human. As he fled through the blank outer room to the outdoors, he knew that he was being watched. He exploded into the darkness—the ship had stopped glowing—and bent over, gasping.
A moment later he was ashamed of himself. He was a coward. It was only technology, just machines using genetics instead of motors, just the right way, what did he fucking expect…
Not this. Not this.
How did Mike and Dr. Wilkins stay? Of course, they were older, they were more used to the pribir… They were brave. He was a coward.
For the first time, Cord understood why Emily, Lillie, all that generation hated the pribir. They had done this sort of thing to them aboard the first ship, without the humans’ consent, without telling them what would happen to them. The pribir had even made the girls pregnant, had taken sperm from the boys… that was rape.
He’d never seen it before. If anyone had done that to Clari, had handled her body and put babies in her that weren’t Cord’s…
Cord straightened in the darkness. He knew he wasn’t going to go back into that ship. Neither was he going to tell the pribir to leave his mother alone… not that the aliens would obey him! But the point was that he wasn’t going to do it. He was going to go along with whatever Pam and Pete did, and don’t fool yourself, Cord: it’s not like with the older generation. They’d had no choice. His going along was a choice. He, Cord Anderson, was choosing to let aliens rape his people.
He couldn’t go back inside. Shivering even though it wasn’t cold, he blundered in the dark toward the bench under the cottonwoods and sat there, hearing the creek trickle over stones, staring anywhere except at the ship he couldn’t see anyway through the thick night.
Twenty-four hours later, Lillie emerged from the ship walking steadily, her gray eyes clear as her mind. She hugged Kella, still pregnant, and Keith. She listened as DeWayne and Spring filled her in on everything that Scott Wilkins hadn’t already told her. She stood for a long moment in Mike’s arms, neither of them needing to say anything about Hannah’s death or their future. Then she went to find Cord, who had slept alone in the barn, who had refused to come anywhere near the house or the ship or any person, human or pribir.