Read Online Planetfall by Emma Newman - Free Book Online Page B

“Can’t have them thinking we’re colluding.”
    â€œWhat would we collude over?”
    â€œNothing. Would you like a drink?”
    â€œWater, please.”
    I watch her walk over to the kitchen area, which is nothing more than a countertop and a couple of hot plates for when the mood to cook takes her. There’s a food printer and a few other gadgets hidden behind gleaming panels of crystal. I don’t know how she copes with all the sparkling. The outside world must seem very dull and matte to her children.
    She slides one of the panels across, finds a glass shaped like a lily and fills it with water from the dispenser next to the printer. I know the water is pure; I built the filtration system. The glass isn’t one of her design; she only uses downloadable templates.
    â€œThanks,” I say and drink most of it straightaway, not appreciating my thirst until now. She refills it for me before getting one for herself and then beckons me over to join her as she sits on the wide white sofa.
    I perch at the other end of it, feeling like I’m taking sanctuary from wolves in a bear’s cave. “How are the girls?” I ask, having forgotten their names.
    â€œFine, fine,” she says. “So tell me all about him.”
    I knew it was coming. “Is that the price for my rescue?”
    She sniffs. “Mack answered everyone’s questions, but didn’t say what he was like. Is he savage? He must be, living without any access to the cloud.”
    â€œPeople don’t become feral just because they’re not chipped!”
    â€œI didn’t think he would be.” Her smile makes me curse myself. I resolve to not give any more away. “Will he be at the party?”
    â€œI’ve no idea.”
    â€œMack said he can talk, like us.”
    â€œCarmen, he wasn’t raised by gorillas!”
    Leaning back, she sips from her glass. I have the feeling she’s building up to something. “So he understands how we live. Enough to join the colony, at least.”
    â€œIs there something that’s worrying you?”
    Carmen puts the glass down by her feet and sits on the edge of the sofa, suddenly focused and businesslike. “You must have thought about the timing of this.”
    I keep quiet. Does she mean how long it took for us to discover they’d survived, or something else?
    â€œIt’s less than two weeks before the next message from the Pathfinder.” When I keep silent, she sighs and says, “Renata, don’t you think it auspicious that her grandson—one that we didn’t even know exists—comes here in time to receive her message?”
    â€œâ€˜Auspicious’ is a loaded word.”
    â€œWhat would you use?”
    â€œCoincidental.”
    It’s not what she wants to hear. There’s the tiniest shake of her head. “You don’t think it’s significant in any way?”
    â€œI think him coming here is significant, not the timing.”
    â€œGod guided him here to us—”
    â€œHe memorized a map.”
    â€œIn time to receive the Pathfinder’s message,” she continues, ignoring me. “And I think it should be he who takes the seed.”
    I rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. I’m too tired for this shit. “Carmen, there are rules about this; you know that.” I don’t say anything about how I feel about them, how much I dread the event nor how the ritualization of it all makes me sick to my stomach.
    â€œRules that
we
made, not God.”
    â€œThey were made for good reasons.”
    â€œBut this sign from God should take precedence over anything Mack decided was the way to do things over twenty years ago!”
    I don’t like the sound of this. “It wasn’t just Mack; it was the council, and you bloody well know why they decided this was the way.” She doesn’t know the true reasons; none of them do, aside from Mack