“Thank you,” Jepp replied. “Here’s the situation . . . The Sheen are governed by a machine intelligence called the Hoon. It has orders to destroy the Thraki race.”
Seph felt a crevasse open at the pit of her stomach. Contrary to the dictates of both logic and common sense, she had allowed herself to hope—that the stories were wrong, that the machines had changed, that something good would happen. Fur rippled away from her eyes. “Then why did you come? To tell us our fate?”
The words had a hard almost metallic edge to them. The human didn’t blame her. “No, that was not our purpose. I came to ask that you embrace the one and only all-knowing, all seeing, all-powerful God.”
Like 99 percent of her race Seph believed in a pantheon of gods and considered the god the alien described to be patently impossible. After all, how could one god, no matter how capable, possibly handle the running of the universe? The idea was laughable. Still, there were the Children to consider, and if the alien proved sufficiently gullible, the rest of the convoy as well. “One god? What an interesting notion. Tell me more.”
Veera, whose father had trained her to look for lies, watched in silent amazement as the exprospector turned amateur messiah not only fell for the Thraki’s attempt at deception, but proceeded to spew the same line of nonsense he had tried on her.
It took the human the better part of twenty minutes to rattle off all the stuff about how the machines were a gift from God, the mission to which he alone had been called, and the opportunity that stretched before them. “I can save your souls,” Jepp said importantly, “and deliver them to the Lord.”
“We accept,” Seph answered earnestly. “What should we do?”
This was a much different response from the one given by the earlier group that Jepp had encountered. He was surprised. Very surprised. “Really? You mean it?”
“Yes,” Seph lied fervently, “I do. Save our souls from the Sheen, and give them to the one all-knowing God.”
The words summoned up images of a triumphant Jepp presenting a gift to God. This was it! The moment he’d been waiting for! “God bless you. Commander—and all your people. My assistant and I will return to the shuttle where we can petition the Hoon. A warning, however—the machine is stubborn. It may be necessary to tell a few untruths.”
Seph struggled to control her expression, realized it wouldn’t mean anything to the creature in front of her, and let the matter go. The alien was an idiot, and she couldn’t imagine why the Sheen continued to put up with him. “Really? What sort of untruths?”
Jepp appeared hesitant. “That you and your companions are not only renegades—but willing to aid the Sheen.”
“Of course,” Seph replied calmly. “Do as you must.”
Jepp, victory almost in his grasp, was eager to leave, Real live converts! Doubters? Yes, almost certainly, but that would change. He knew that it would.
Seph saw the aliens to the hatch and waited for it to close. She turned to Subcommander Homa. “The little ones? Where are they?”
Homa, acutely aware of the fact that one of the youngsters was his, discovered the lump in his throat. He struggled to swallow it. “They made it to the edge of the crater—and hid among the rocks.”
Seph looked her subordinate in the eyes. She had never produced any offspring of her own—but could imagine how the other officer felt. “The alien is a fool. The Hoon will refuse. The Sheen will attack.”
Homa met her gaze. “If you are correct, and they attack from space, the little ones will be killed.”
“Exactly,” Seph agreed. “Unless we run.”
“Which would force them to chase us,” Homa said thoughtfully. “Saving the cubs but negating any possibility that the machines will accept your lies.”
“So,” Seph said gently, “what should we do?”
Homa felt a great upwelling of sorrow, for the daughter he would never see again, for himself, and for the entire Thraki race. Why? Why did the machines continually hunt them? The priests offered platitudes but no one really knew. All of it was so stupid and unnecessary. The words were little more than a croak.
“We must run.”
Seph, who felt strangely detached, bowed her head. “I’m sorry old friend—but I’m forced to agree.”
As the Hoon listened to the human’s rantings with a minute part of its consciousness, it also monitored streams of
