Tatia stripped and washed herself in cold water.
< That may not be exactly what Sun Tzu meant.
> I had a boyfriend into martial arts.
< But yes. It makes sense. They’re trapped in their own culture. Imprisoned by their own beliefs. Bound by their own social mores.
She dressed in a coverall and wished for a thong and a bra and someone who’d remove them from her with an ever-increasing excitement that matched her own. But that line of thought always led to her feeling sad and frustrated, it wasn’t a fantasy she wanted to share with a parent, even a fake one.
> Mom? Tell me more about being trapped by your own beliefs.
Mom was eager to do so. Anything to get Tatia’s mind off sex.
Think of the story about the frog giving the scorpion a lift across a river: “You stung me!” says the frog. “Now we’ll both drown! Why?” And the scorpion says: “It’s just the way I am.”
Think of religious sects that didn’t believe in sex – one even practised castration – and so inevitably died out before they could convert the world.
Of societies that for whatever reasons encouraged marriage between cousins, even knowing this would lead to more and more birth defects, and the eventual weakening of the same society.
Explorers pushing on even though they and their followers would die.
Countries that destroyed themselves by avoidable pollution.
> You mean this master pre-cog race is a lot like us?
< Evolution is universal. Think of all the Earth species that died out because they could not or would not adapt.
> Perhaps my role is to kick-start a revolution?
< Or prevent one.
Never an easy burden to bear.
And a role not my choice, Tatia thought with a growing fury. Manipulated by her own father, a man prepared to sacrifice anything – including me – in the war against the alien pre-cogs. Had he sacrificed Tatia’s mother as well? All he’d said about her, before Tatia stormed off, was that she’d died while fighting the same damn war. Abandoned by one parent, manipulated by another.
Both of them consumed by hatred?
Headstrong and emotional maybe, but Tatia was also fair. There’d been hatred perhaps, but she’d also sensed in Greenaway a deep and genuine concern for Earth. He was obsessive about a cause. Okay, military people often are. It’s how they keep going. Like how Kara was obsessed with getting her people home – will you come for me, Kara? I wish you were here. Even Marc, no matter how strange he’d become. Kara hadn’t seen it, but I had. Marc was becoming a netherspace babe.
It was then that Tatia understood that the Originators were not top pre-cog dog. Like all pre-cogs, they were trapped by the very ability that made them powerful. The timeline was all-sacred. They hated change, for it led to a chaos of fresh possibilities.
< That’s a wonderful insight.
> Maybe it was yours.
< If I did all the thinking you’d just sit and mope.
* * *
There were no more planetfalls. Tatia kept away from the Originators.
Until the moment they exited netherspace, the shields became transparent and she saw a planet that made her gasp.
Huge, blue-green but in so many different shades and hues. Blue-green shining in the black of space. Tatia thought of emeralds and the Pacific sparkling on a summer day, of a lover’s eyes, of a piece of cloth seen in a market.
< It’s a water planet.
> It’s so beautiful!
Tatia ran to the centre of the craft to see better, ignoring the seven Originators floating in a group.
She saw what was on the other side of the craft and wonder became horror.
Tall it was, stretching at least a mile, two miles above her. And next to it another one, and another and another, vast structures all in orbit around the blue-green planet. Tatia could only stare at the one barely thirty metres away, at its myriad compartments and transparent force-field walls.
She saw the row upon row of floating figures kept in place by umbilicals fixed to their heads and their stomachs. Human figures, all shapes, sizes. Children and adults. Tatia knew what happened to those exchanged for star drives, and for call-out fees who’d lost the gamble. They were not in a queue for paradise. Nor waiting to be cured. They were being used. Milked, sucked dry, eaten. To all intents and purposes dead.
Tatia went back to her pod and re-emerged with the first alien weapon.
< Are you sure? Mom concerned for her.
> Yes!
All the frustration, anger and resentment of the past year, of her past life, now embraced by fury, loathing and contempt.
< They might be saved.
> Look at them! Some are little more than skeletons! Their eyes... her own tears came... > their eyes are open and don’t see anything!
< Even so.
> My rules, my choice!
Tatia walked towards the Originators, who backed off. Pure hate filled her mind. The aliens began to move, knocking into each other.
The hate increased and with it came a sense of power, an energy coursing through her, needing direction, needing to destroy.
The Originators’ movement became more frantic, now crashing into each other with a sharp clang, becoming entwined and trying to fly off in different directions.
Instinctively, Tatia understood how to direct the energy.
* * *
All she had to do was focus and concentrate hard on the Originators, and let the fury do its work. It felt good.
It felt wonderful.
One of the three-globed aliens smashed onto the deck. Two globes lay inert, the third trying to rise before falling back.
Another tried to move away. Tatia thought No! and saw it spin crazily as it also fell to the deck. And another. Another. No more left.
Tatia walked across to the tangled mass. Her mind cleared, leaving only a sense of exultation. One of the globes had opened, revealing a brown, wrinkled thing inside. Not a brain, more like a giant, ancient cobnut. A clear liquid began to seep through the skin. There was
