Inheritance

“I don’t think you understand,” Deyir said.

“No, you don’t understand,” Reese insisted, growing increasingly frustrated. “You can’t just come here and say, ‘Oops, we fucked up a million years ago, let us fix things.’ You may have had a hand in creating us, but we have been doing fine here this whole time. We have created our own cultures and our own technologies. Your plan doesn’t take account of that. Your plan just says humans need to be changed, so we’ll change them without their permission.”

“Humans might not be able to do susum’urda,” David said, “but we’re not idiots. We’ve managed to survive this long without your abilities. We’re not going to roll over and say, ‘Sure, adapt us, we don’t know any better.’ ”

“Besides, the truth will come out,” Reese said. “It always does. If you don’t tell the truth from the beginning, you’re just asking for a war. You said yourself that humans are prone to violence. Don’t you see what you could be starting?”

For the first time since they arrived in his office, Akiya Deyir seemed rattled. Amber leaned forward and said, “She’s right. David’s right too. I don’t think humanity is going to go for it. You can’t just expect them to fall in line. They don’t know us. We’re strangers to them, and we’ve already started off on the wrong foot by lying about who we are.”

“You have to tell the truth on Monday at the UN,” David said.

“If you really want us to change, you have to change too,” Reese said. “You have to start treating us as your equals.”

Deyir’s gaze flickered around the table. His face gave away nothing. Finally he said, “I’ll think about what you’ve told me. That’s all I can promise you. I’ll think about it.”

CHAPTER 32

When David and Reese returned to the living quarters after their meeting with Akiya Deyir, the door to Reese’s mom’s room was open. Reese paused in front of her own room and asked David, “What are you up to now?” She was anxious and impatient, and she wished that Deyir had given them a more concrete answer.

“Homework?” he said, grimacing. “How long do you think it’s going to take for him to decide?”

“I hope not too long.”

Reese’s mom came out of her room, followed by her dad. “While you’re waiting,” her mom said, “I think it’s time for you two to come clean about everything.”

David gave Reese’s parents a nervous grin. “Hi, Ms. Sheridan.” He paused as Reese’s dad’s name seemed to escape him, but was saved when his own parents came into the corridor too. Reese had the distinct impression that the four adults had been waiting to ambush them.

“Why don’t you all come into our room,” David’s mom suggested. “We have a little more space.” Reese glanced at David. We do have to tell them about our abilities, and your dad has more info about the test results, right?

Yeah. I guess now’s as good a time as any.

Beats doing homework?

David smiled slightly. “Okay,” he said out loud, and walked down the corridor toward his parents’ quarters. Reese and her parents followed.

* * *

At 6:15 PM, Reese was seated in the dining hall with David and their families, eating a perfectly acceptable but rather boring meal of chicken, salad, and crusty bread that seemed as if it had been ordered out of a nearby Whole Foods. “I apologize for the absence of my colleagues,” Nura Halba said as he sat down with them in the nearly deserted room. “They are in discussions, and I believe they will be there all night.”

Dealing with what we told them, Reese thought. She took a sip of her water and pushed the cherry tomatoes around on her plate. She wondered how long it would take Mr. Hernandez to figure out that neither she nor David was coming to their meeting.

“That’s fine,” her mom said. “We’re grateful that you’ve allowed us to stay here on such short notice.”

Halba smiled, and he looked more Asian than ever. Reese still hadn’t figured out how she could broach that subject with any of the Imria. “Tomorrow night we’ll have a proper dinner,” he said. “Everyone on board will come. It will be a belated welcome banquet.”

“Will there be actual Imrian food?” Reese asked.

Halba seemed amused by her question. “Well, we do have to buy local. We can’t bring fresh groceries all the way from Kurra, but yes, we’ll have some Imrian-style dishes.”

The door slid open and Amber came into the dining hall alone. She gave them a smile before she went to serve herself from the dishes on the buffet. Reese glanced across the table at David. He had tensed up every time Amber was nearby, and tonight was no different. She got out of the meeting, he thought. Do you think it’s over?

I don’t know, Reese told him. When Amber came to the table, she slid into an empty seat at the end next to Halba. “Hi,” she said to everyone. “I don’t think I’ve met you all?” After the introductions, Halba excused himself, leaving a gap at the table where he had been sitting next to David. Amber did not move over to close up the space, and Reese saw David turn away from her slightly while he spoke to his sister in low tones.

“Amber,” Reese said, “are they still in their meeting?”

Amber glanced up from her meal. “Yeah. They have to talk to Kurra, and there’s sort of a time lag. It’s going to take a while.”

Reese knew David was listening, even though he was pretending not to. She could feel it across the table, his attentiveness like a charged webbing between them. She had never been able to sense his emotions so acutely when they weren’t touching, and she knew it was because Amber put him on edge.

“What do you think they’ll decide?” Reese asked.

“I don’t know,” Amber said. “I hope they listen to you guys.”

Chloe suddenly burst out, “I don’t want to do that. I’m bored.”

Everybody turned to look at the twelve-year-old, who was glaring at her mother. Grace Li frowned at her daughter. “I’m sorry. I told you that we would be here for a few days and you should bring some things to read. Maybe your brother can play a game with you?”

Even David seemed a little annoyed, but he said, “Sure. What do you want to play, Chloe?”

Chloe rolled her eyes with such vehemence that Reese thought they might pop out of their sockets. “He doesn’t want to play a game, Mom.”

Reese swallowed a laugh at Chloe’s sarcastic tone. Amber leaned over the table so she could see David’s little sister and asked, “Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

Chloe realized that everybody was looking at her, and her face turned red. She didn’t seem to be able to speak anymore.

Grace said, “That’s nice of you, but you don’t need to go out of your way.”

Amber looked surprised. “Oh! No, I mean, I can just set up the screens over there to play a movie if you want. We can get whatever’s online.”

“Anything?” Chloe said, sounding doubtful.

“Sure.” Amber glanced at Chloe’s parents. “Well, anything your parents say is okay.” She got up and went over to the screens that showed the view outside. The sky was darkening toward twilight, and across the field the eucalyptus trees moved in a gentle breeze. Amber touched the wall and the screens went black. A moment later she had pulled up an Internet movie rental site.

“You can get that here?” Chloe said, scrambling out of her seat.

“Of course. What do you want to see?”

David’s parents traded wry glances, and Grace stood. “I’d better make sure she doesn’t pick something she’s not allowed to watch.”

Chloe chose Blue Moon, a movie about a high school cheerleader-turned-