Nor, she found, could she access the safety cameras to monitor what transpired outside. It dawned on her: Marvin had been blocking her messages to Blake all along. Carlos’s doing, she supposed. The man knew computers.
Weary, defeated, Rikki lay down and closed her eyes. And opened them almost at once, to banish the image of Li brandishing her gun.
If Rikki had even remembered Endeavour had weapons in its cargo, she’d have thought them packed away forever. Anachronisms. Useless. Not as much as a gnat existed on Dark to harm them. To take up arms after billions—whole worlds—had perished? It was more than horrendous, beyond obscene.
And she was hopelessly naïve. An end to violence would only come when human nature changed.
The lock clicked.
“Stand back,” Li called. “I’m armed.”
Rikki, who had been pacing, sat on the bench.
Li entered cautiously, looking around the room. With gun in hand, she indicated the food tray. “You should eat.”
“You expect me to believe this meal isn’t poisoned?”
“That’s your theory?” Li laughed.
“You obviously poisoned me. To keep me behind as your hostage?”
“Not exactly. In fact, at first I was annoyed at how the timing worked out, that you’d be staying behind. Tying up loose ends would have been easier without you underfoot. But you know what? I’m glad you’re here. You’ll be more convincing when the others return.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not exactly?’”
“I did do something to you,” Li said. “Someday, maybe you’ll thank me. ’Til then I trust it will make you cautious.”
“I’m your goddamned prisoner! I can’t do a thing. So stop being coy and tell me. What did you do?”
“Carlos and me. Do you remember the immune-system booster shot at your last routine physical? That was actually software updates for your nanites.” Li smiled. “All that’s wrong with you is a major case of morning sickness.”
“I’m…pregnant?”
*
Pacing, sleeping, and staring out the window. It passed the time but provided no answers.
Nothing Li had done made sense. Why reveal having warped the children? Just to brag? Why hold Rikki as a prisoner? Did Li think she and her gun could hold everyone at bay once Blake, Dana, and Antonio returned? She had to sleep sometime!
And above all: why had Li enabled her to get pregnant?”
Staring out the window, Rikki screamed, at everyone and no one, “Are you crazy?”
Children scattered. In seconds they had abandoned all of the play area visible from her window.
Not once in two days had Rikki seen an adult in the yard to supervise the kids. Was that the shape of things to come?
*
“Come,” Li ordered. “And bring your coat. We’re going outside.”
Rikki didn’t budge from her seat. “Why? Do you have more abuse to boast about?”
“I’m not the one yelling at the children.” Holding open the bathroom door, Li backed into the corridor. Her other hand held a gun. “I assume you’d like to know what this is about. And before you try anything stupid, remember: you’re pregnant.”
“As an elaborate, especially cruel, slow-motion way to kill me?” Because you’re that sick.
“Oh, never mind what I told your doting husband. ‘Could be fatal’ leaves a great deal of wiggle room. I’d give you four-to-one odds you’ll be fine.” Li gestured. “Out. I have things to show you. Things that, once you’re free, you’ll want to tell your friends.”
Free? Without a hostage, how did Li expect—whatever she was up to—to outlast Endeavour’s return? She had to sleep sometime.
“You’re adorable when you’re confused. Come. Your questions will all be answered.”
Seething, Rikki followed.
Just inside the open(!) gate at the north end of Main Street, she saw Carlos. And a bulldozer, parked. And a dozen or more of the older children with rakes and shovels. Only you couldn’t dig in the rock-hard ground.
“What are they doing?” Rikki asked.
“All in good time.”
Their first stop was the settlement’s primary, deeply buried bunker. A tornado shelter, at Antonio’s insistence, not that they had ever had a tornado. Li motioned Rikki away from the double steel doors to palm the handprint reader, then backed away.
“You first,” Li said.
Rikki raised one of the heavy doors. It fell to the side with a crash. The late afternoon sun touched only the first few steps, and she tapped the light-switch sensor. Her heart pounding, she scanned their most precious possessions: the embryo banks, still almost full. Bags of seed. Marvin’s servers. Everything appeared untouched—but she knew Marvin had been altered.
What else, unseen, had Li and Carlos…tainted?
“We don’t have all day. Down.”
“So you can shut me inside?”
Li sighed. “I could have locked you here in the first place, couldn’t I? Just go down. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”
Hugging the railing, Rikki started down the concrete stairs. A tall stepladder she had last seen in the greenhouse, where she had used it to replace a cracked roof panel, leaned against the opposite wall. Everything else in the bunker was as Rikki remembered it—even the sturdy steel hook of the chain hoist on which, as usual, she cracked her head.
She reached the bottom and had circled half the bunker floor before her captor descended the first few steps. Li said, “Look up. Higher.”
Well beyond Rikki’s reach, strapped to the two steel beams that braced the concrete ceiling, packages…blinked.
Li took something from her pocket. “The trigger.”
Rikki did not want to believe. “Those are explosives?”
“More than enough to bring the roof of the bunker crashing down.”
And thereby end…everything. As from a great distance, Rikki heard herself ask, “Why?”
“Here’s some old Earth history you might never have learned. Two great-power archenemies. Each side had enough nukes to obliterate its rival many times over. And neither side ever launched its missiles. Neither side dared, knowing the other would retaliate. Even an overwhelming first strike without warning might leave intact enough weapons for a devastating counterstrike. Strategists called the policy MAD. Mutual assured destruction.”
It was mad, all right. “What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”
“Our history lesson isn’t quite done.” Li poked at her remote. Overhead,
