“Go away, Zo?,” I said.
“Screw you, ninety-year-old dad,” Zo? said, smiling and yet deadly serious at the same time. Then she turned back to the Obin. “And screw the both of you, too. And while we’re at it, screw being whatever it is that I am to the Obin. If you want to protect me, protect the people I care about. Protect this colony.”
“We cannot,” Hickory said. “We’ve been forbidden to do so.”
“Then you have a problem,” Zo? said. Her smile was gone, and her eyes were glistening. “Because I’m not going anywhere. And there’s nothing either you or anyone can do to change that.” Zo? stormed out.
“That went pretty much exactly as I expected,” I said.
“You didn’t do all you could do to convince her,” Hickory said.
I squinted at Hickory. “You’re suggesting I was insincere.”
“Yes,” Hickory said. Its expression was even more unreadable than usual, but I can’t imagine that saying something like that was easy for it; the emotional response would probably cause it to shut down its interface soon.
“You’re right,” I said. “I was insincere.”
“But why?” Hickory asked, and I was surprised by the plaintiveness in its voice. It was shaking now. “You have killed your own child, and the child of Charles Boutin.”
“She’s not dead yet,” I said. “And neither are we. Neither is this colony.”
“You know we cannot allow Zo? to come to harm,” Dickory said, breaking his silent act. I was reminded that he was in actuality the superior of the two Obin.
“Are you going to go back to the plan of killing me and Jane to protect Zo??” I asked.
“It is to be hoped not,” Dickory said.
“What a delightfully ambiguous answer,” I said.
“It’s not ambiguous,” Hickory said. “You know what our position is. What it must be.”
“And I’d ask you to remember what my position is,” I said. “I’ve told you that in every circumstance you should protect Zo?. That position has not changed.”
“But you have made it substantially more difficult,” Hickory said. “You may have made it impossible.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Let me make a proposal to the two of you. You have a ship arriving soon. I’m going to promise you that Zo? will leave with you on that ship. But you have to promise me that you take her where I am going to ask her to go.”
“Where is that?” Hickory said.
“I’m not going to tell you yet,” I said.
“That will make it difficult for us to agree,” Hickory said.
“That’s the breaks,” I said. “But I guarantee you where you’re taking her will be more safe than here. Now. Agree, and I’ll make sure she goes with you. Don’t, you’ll have to find a way to protect her here, or kill me and Jane trying to drag her away. These are your choices.”
Hickory and Dickory leaned in and conversed for several minutes, longer than I had ever seen them converse before.
“We accept your condition,” Hickory said.
“Good,” I said. “Now all I have to do is get Zo? to agree. Not to mention Jane.”
“Will you tell us now where we will be taking Zo??” Hickory asked.
“To deliver a message,” I said.
The Kristina Marie had just docked at Khartoum Station when its engine compartment shattered, vaporizing the back quarter of the trading ship and driving the front three-quarters of the ship directly into Khartoum Station. The station’s hull buckled and snapped; air and personnel burst from the fracture lines. Across the impact zone airtight bulkheads sprang into place, only to be torn from their moorings and sockets by the encroaching inertial mass of the Kristina Marie, itself bleeding atmosphere and crew from the collision. When the ship came to rest, the explosion and collision had crippled Khartoum Station, and killed 566 people on the station and all but six members of the Kristina Marie’s crew, two of whom died shortly thereafter of their injuries.