Divergence

“Why don’t you tell him, Saskia? Meanwhile, I’ll try to figure my way through the mess that Donny made of our systems.”

Saskia held his gaze, her lips thin with annoyance. “You’d better be able to,” she said darkly, and then she turned to Edward and gave him a big beaming smile.

“Edward,” she said, “come over here.”

Feeling more nervous than ever, Edward followed her to the new chessboard-patterned table that stood near the kitchen area. Saskia could be pretty, Edward thought as he anxiously looked at her, with her big dark eyes and her wide mouth and her black hair that curved around her thin face; it was just that she never seemed to want to. She rarely smiled. She wore nice clothes, just like Joanne, but she seemed to wear them in a different way, as if they were just part of a uniform, something that had to be done. Joanne looked like a woman in her clothes: she had glared at Edward more than once for staring at her breasts or her bum. But Saskia, she just looked like someone wearing nice clothes. Edward felt confused. He wasn’t used to thinking thoughts like these.

“Edward,” said Saskia, taking one of his big hands in hers. “You know that the Stranger tricked us into a bad deal?”

Edward nodded, not quite sure if this was true or not. Hadn’t Michel said there was no such thing as a bad deal where the FE software was concerned?

Saskia was still smiling. She looked like a big doll, sort of pretty but hollow inside.

“Well, Edward, the last thing that the Stranger did was to set the ship to copy itself. You understand that? Yes? Self-replication happens all the time in the Earth Domain. Well, for some reason, one of the conditions of accepting FE software on board seems to be that the self-replication no longer happens when you want it to.”

“I know that,” said Edward.

“Of course you do,” said Saskia. “Well, somehow the Stranger managed to make our ship replicate. There are now two Eva Rye s. We are on one: you, me, Maurice and”—her smile froze a little—“Miss Rose. And it would appear that Joanne, Craig, Donny, Armstrong, and Michel are on the other one.”

“Oh,” said Edward. “And Donny’s kids?”

“Yes.”

Edward inhaled a deep shuddering breath. “So why can’t we go and dock with the other ship?”

Saskia gave him a very odd look. “Because, Edward, I didn’t realize that anyone on board this Eva Rye knew how to fly the ship until a few moments ago.” She glared across at Maurice, who ignored her and continued to tap away at his console.

“Oh,” said Edward again. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” said Saskia. “That’s why I want to ask you to do something important for me. Do you think you can do that?”

Edward nodded.

“Good,” beamed Saskia. “Good! Now, Maurice and I have to do a lot of talking. I want you to stay over here and not disturb us while we try to figure out what to do next. Do you think you can do that?”

“Saskia,” Edward replied in his deep voice, “I’m not a kid. I’m just not very clever.”

Saskia’s eyes widened slightly, as people’s eyes often did when Edward said this.

“I know that, Edward,” she said, regaining her poise. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you make us all some tea? You’re good at that, aren’t you? You make nice tea.”

Edward thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll make the tea.”

“Good!” said Saskia. “That will help us think.”

At that the smile drained from her face and she rose from her chair to rejoin Maurice, who was sitting on one of the newly grown white leather sofas, his console on his lap.

“Well?” she snapped.

Maurice didn’t bother to look up from his console.