“This should have been the one foremost in my mind,” she said.
She turned to Delight.
“I will have my teams search the ship for any more.”
“How will you know?” Delight asked.
“They smell different.”
Oh. Well, of course, they did, but the queen was not finished. She turned back to me.
“How is your Mack?”
My Mack? Why did all the bu…everyone think that? Rather than give her a chance to answer that, I changed the subject.
“How come it was speaking Galbas?”
“Who?”
“The arach. How come it could speak Galbas? On the ship, it needed an interpreter.”
“It was using the interpreters to make three points. The first was that you were not significant enough for it to speak to in your language. The second was that it had humans on board. The third was to emphasize that you were just cattle to them.”
“And are we?” I asked, shivering against a cold that wasn’t there.
The queen cocked her head, observing the reaction.
“Yes. All non-arach are. It is why the weavers are so divided.”
I didn’t get that. If the arach considered the weavers cattle, then how could the weavers be divided?
“Some hope for their value to be seen, and their race accepted as an equal part in the arach whole.”
“Not gonna happen,” Delight said.
She’d been lounging against a nearby wall, and watching the conversation. I’d come up to the bridge to answer the questions posed by Odyssey’s commander, as he struggled to come to grips with murdering however many humans had been on board the transport and cruiser. He was still struggling, even after sharing memories of the fate that awaited us.
When the line had gone dead, the queen had given a very vespis shrug.
“He will understand only when they take his ship,” she said, and everyone in the command center had turned to her.
“When?”
“More will come, if we do not find their infiltrators,” which was when she had apologized for not thinking of them sooner.
I jumped, as Delight slapped a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, kiddo. Your Mack is going to be a much better patient, if you’re sitting next to him, when he wakes up.”
Talk about your role reversal. I wanted to disagree, but I had an idea she was right. The arach had taken Mack out while he was waiting for me to wake up from the tank. We’d all be a lot better off, if Mack saw I was all right when he came round.
I let Delight steer me out of the command center, but I didn’t miss the way she glanced over at the vespis queen just before she left—and I didn’t miss the subtle twitch of the queen’s antenna in response. Something was afoot, and, if I was right, I’d need my Mack on his feet to have any chance of getting through it in one piece.
“We all do,” Delight said, and I rolled my eyes.
So, we were back to that, were we?
“What? Me in your head. You being a recalcitrant pain-in-the-ass and getting the job done? Hell, yes, we are!”
Mack was already up, when we hit the medical center, and Doc was doing his damnedest to get him back into bed. I caught sight of the needle in Doc’s hand, and almost left them to it, but Delight had wrapped her arm around my shoulders for a reason. And it wasn’t because she liked me.
“I like you plenty, Cutter,” she said, giving me a shove that propelled me forward. “I’ll like you more, if you can talk the big guy down.”
Hint taken.
“Mack,” I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious, but he was too busy locking eyes with the doc to notice. I figured they were having a conversation link-to-link. “Mack!”
Both he and Doc turned towards me.
Doc still had the needle in his hand.
Delight caught me before I quite reached the door, and turned me back around. This time, Doc had taken a step to the side, and there wasn’t a needle in sight.
“Cutter,” and there was a world of worry and relief in Mack’s voice. I ignored it, the best way I knew how.
“You causing trouble, boss?”
He’d taken two steps towards me, and looked, for all the world, like he was going to give me a hug. I was almost disappointed when he stopped, frowned, then straightened himself up, and walked right past me, giving me a firm pat on the shoulder as he went.
“So,” he said, as he strode past Delight, “what’s Odyssey want me to do, this time?”
Doc pushed himself off the wall, and walked over.
“Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair beside Mack’s bed. “You’re overdue for a check-up.”
I took a step back, and he frowned.
“Don’t make me ask Mack to bring you back.”
Well, the man sure knew the right things to say. I was still puzzling over why I felt so relieved, and yet so upset by Mack walking out the door, the way he had.
“Fine,” and I went and took a seat.
Doc rolled through the check-up, poking at where K’Tina had skewered me with her claws, and then making sure I was well in general. I was not ready for Mack and Tens to come back through the door, but I got why they were there.
“Seriously?” I asked, as Mack stopped in front of me, and crooked his finger, signaling me onto my feet.
I thought about trying to get round him, but Tens was blocking the only viable path to the door. Doc just sat and watched the show. Me? I was just so bloody sick of my body trying to run every time Doc had to give me a shot, or take some blood, or whatever. It was embarrassing!
I stood up, and stepped forward, pressing my forehead into Mack’s chest. Well, I suppose this was one way of getting a hug. I tried to ignore the fact Mack was laughing as he wrapped his arms around me.
“Hold still, Cutter.”
I held. It helped a lot that Mack was in my head when Doc took
