course," said Carradee. "Something about this place makes me too hopeful, I think."
"It was a lovely fantasy," Anna murmured, "but we have no dealings with Three Zed. They are perverse and deceitful. We would attack them in force, except that the Eternal Speaker commands us to hold back until He calls us to destroy them."
Carradee ignored Anna's gloomy analysis and the sideswipe at Bren-nen's current mission. Anna obviously disapproved of the attempt to trap a Shuhr. She claimed that the God they served would provide enough knowledge and power to destroy Three Zed when He issued the call. "Very well," Carradee said softly, wiping Kiel's face with her serviette. "I will wait. But it is hard. I want to hold my own children again."
Chapter 4
MIRRORS coumnte
a quick dance in triple time, with rapidly shifting meters
Fifty-four days had passed since Juddis Adiyn injected the Caldwell-Shirak embryo into Terza Shirak's womb. Waking from a fitful sleep, Terza rolled away from a shipboard bulkhead and pressed one hand to her stomach. I could almost wish that the Sentinels' god existed, she moaned silently. I would order him to smash Juddis Adiyn into sub-biological particles. He owes me. They all owe me.
She pulled a cover over her head. Darkness held off the inevitable queasiness. It would catch her once she moved, but she didn't want to choke down breakfast while the crew watched and smirked.
If Brennen Caldwell had simply died on Three Zed, this never would have been suggested, even as one of her father's infamous options. The implanted embryo and its supportive membranes couldn't be safely removed, except by childbirth.
She kept to herself on board her father's transport. Beautifully appointed, it might have served the Federacy as a luxury transport before her people took it. From the opulent, enhanced-wavelength shimmer of its corridors to the generously appointed stateroom where she ate and slept, it was a magnificent craft.
On this morning—ship's time—before they were scheduled to arrive on Netaia, she stood for most of an hour inside her vaporbath cubicle, stroking water across sore and swelling breasts. She despised the symptoms that developed as her body adapted to this new role as a container. All her glands seemed to be responding to the half-foreign tissue graft. She'd already learned an important lesson in her chosen field, that the womb-bank was an unspeakably wonderful gift to womankind.
She finished bathing and slipped into formfitting civilian shipboards in a subtle charcoal gray. Superbly ventilated, the shipboards clung to her like a fond dream.
They wouldn't flatter her figure for long.
Abruptly overcome by the completeness with which her life changed with one tissue injection, she dropped onto her bunk and let herself cry silently behind her secret inmost shields. Cursed with the reflective temperament, Terza felt the loss of her freedom, the loss of her few friends at Cahal and in the City. She might have—no, she would have been culled in training for her temperament, if not for those inner shields. Even Director Polar hadn't detected them. Discovering them had been an accident, when as a seven-year-old she'd been in danger of severe discipline.
She ought to report them to Juddis Adiyn, who was always looking for new epsilon abilities. He bred them carefully into the next generation. Still, self-preservation was mightier than scientific curiosity.
Her door buzzer sounded. "Go away," she whispered, but it buzzed again.
She rocked to her feet. She checked her dark hair, pulled conservatively into a holdfast, in a freshing cabinet mirror. Then she touched a tile that opened the door.
Her half brother Micahel, cleft-chinned with strong cheekbones, shoved something that looked vaguely edible into her hand. Come, he ordered subvocally. Father wants to meet you.
That thought no longer delighted her. Terza shoved the doughy lump into her mouth. Why now? she asked in the same
"It was a lovely fantasy," Anna murmured, "but we have no dealings with Three Zed. They are perverse and deceitful. We would attack them in force, except that the Eternal Speaker commands us to hold back until He calls us to destroy them."
Carradee ignored Anna's gloomy analysis and the sideswipe at Bren-nen's current mission. Anna obviously disapproved of the attempt to trap a Shuhr. She claimed that the God they served would provide enough knowledge and power to destroy Three Zed when He issued the call. "Very well," Carradee said softly, wiping Kiel's face with her serviette. "I will wait. But it is hard. I want to hold my own children again."
Chapter 4
MIRRORS coumnte
a quick dance in triple time, with rapidly shifting meters
Fifty-four days had passed since Juddis Adiyn injected the Caldwell-Shirak embryo into Terza Shirak's womb. Waking from a fitful sleep, Terza rolled away from a shipboard bulkhead and pressed one hand to her stomach. I could almost wish that the Sentinels' god existed, she moaned silently. I would order him to smash Juddis Adiyn into sub-biological particles. He owes me. They all owe me.
She pulled a cover over her head. Darkness held off the inevitable queasiness. It would catch her once she moved, but she didn't want to choke down breakfast while the crew watched and smirked.
If Brennen Caldwell had simply died on Three Zed, this never would have been suggested, even as one of her father's infamous options. The implanted embryo and its supportive membranes couldn't be safely removed, except by childbirth.
She kept to herself on board her father's transport. Beautifully appointed, it might have served the Federacy as a luxury transport before her people took it. From the opulent, enhanced-wavelength shimmer of its corridors to the generously appointed stateroom where she ate and slept, it was a magnificent craft.
On this morning—ship's time—before they were scheduled to arrive on Netaia, she stood for most of an hour inside her vaporbath cubicle, stroking water across sore and swelling breasts. She despised the symptoms that developed as her body adapted to this new role as a container. All her glands seemed to be responding to the half-foreign tissue graft. She'd already learned an important lesson in her chosen field, that the womb-bank was an unspeakably wonderful gift to womankind.
She finished bathing and slipped into formfitting civilian shipboards in a subtle charcoal gray. Superbly ventilated, the shipboards clung to her like a fond dream.
They wouldn't flatter her figure for long.
Abruptly overcome by the completeness with which her life changed with one tissue injection, she dropped onto her bunk and let herself cry silently behind her secret inmost shields. Cursed with the reflective temperament, Terza felt the loss of her freedom, the loss of her few friends at Cahal and in the City. She might have—no, she would have been culled in training for her temperament, if not for those inner shields. Even Director Polar hadn't detected them. Discovering them had been an accident, when as a seven-year-old she'd been in danger of severe discipline.
She ought to report them to Juddis Adiyn, who was always looking for new epsilon abilities. He bred them carefully into the next generation. Still, self-preservation was mightier than scientific curiosity.
Her door buzzer sounded. "Go away," she whispered, but it buzzed again.
She rocked to her feet. She checked her dark hair, pulled conservatively into a holdfast, in a freshing cabinet mirror. Then she touched a tile that opened the door.
Her half brother Micahel, cleft-chinned with strong cheekbones, shoved something that looked vaguely edible into her hand. Come, he ordered subvocally. Father wants to meet you.
That thought no longer delighted her. Terza shoved the doughy lump into her mouth. Why now? she asked in the same
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