Earthseed

again?”
    “I don’t know. But maybe we can find a way. It said it wouldn’t be watching the Hollow, and I think it’ll keep that promise, even if it’s watching us now for a while. We just have to assume that, because otherwise there’s nothing we can do, and I’d rather try than just give up.”
    “What makes you think it’ll keep that promise if it’s lying to us now?”
    “Because it always has,” Zoheret replied. “It never broke its word. And it didn’t lie to us in there, it only said we couldn’t go back to our rooms.”
    “I’m scared.” Bonnie finished her food. “I was never afraid of Ship before, but I am now. What could be wrong?”
    “Maybe there’s some part of the Project we’re not supposed to know about now.”
    “Then maybe we’d better leave it alone.”
    “We can’t, Bonnie. If it concerns the Project, it’s our lives we’re talking about. We have to know what Ship’s doing.” She got up. “I didn’t like that sound in its voice—it isn’t like Ship. Don’t say anything about this until we get back to the settlement. If Ship’s listening, and it thinks we’re not suspicious, it’ll shut down soon, and then maybe we’ll have a chance to do something.”

    Zoheret, sitting on the storehouse steps with Lillka and Brendan, had finished her tale. “Bonnie’s waiting up the river,” she said. “She was afraid to come back until she knew she’d be safe.”
    “What does she expect, running off like that?” Lillka scowled. “If her housemates hadn’t defended her, I would have wondered about her myself. And I was worrying about you, too, until I figured you must have followed her. Anyway, Tonio has something else to do now. He’s going to go after Ho.”
    “What?”
    “He’s going to take some people with him and track Ho down.”
    “He’ll never find him. Ho knows the Hollow too well.” Zoheret rested her arms on her knees. “And have you forgotten what happened the last time you sent Tonio out?”
    Lillka spread her hands, palms up. “We’ve had to double our guards. Everyone’s angry. And I’d rather have Tonio out of here instead of making trouble. He stirs people up.”
    “I see,” Zoheret said slowly. “You can’t tell him what to do, and he might challenge you. That’s what you mean.”
    “We have to do something,” Brendan said. “And at least Bonnie’ll be safe here. Tonio’s after bigger game now.”
    “Bigger game. I love the way you put it.” Zoheret shook her head. “I’m worrying about Ship. That’s a lot more important than Ho.”
    “Are you sure there’s something the matter with Ship?” Lillka asked.
    “You would have known there was if you’d heard it. Ship sounded weird—I’ve never heard it sound that way before.”
    Brendan frowned. The shadows cast by the evening light made his thick, pale eyebrows seem fierce. “What can we do about it? Nothing. Everything here is Ship. You’d be like a corpuscle in your own body trying to fight the brain.”
    Germs can fight the body, Zoheret thought. Viruses can make you sick. “An emergency,” she said. “People who need the infirmary. We can pretend we had an accident and go to the entrance near our old rooms. It’ll have to let us in.”
    “I don’t know if that would work,” Lillka said. “Ship can still hide whatever it might be hiding. And maybe you’d better worry about how Ship will feel when it finds out you’ve tricked it.”
    “I don’t think we have much choice.”
    Brendan sighed. “We have twice as much work to do. We have to guard everything even more carefully, and Tonio wants to take a group on a search party. And now you want to take another group back to the corridors.”
    “Maybe I can talk Tonio into going with me instead. I’ll get Dmitri to talk to him. We can always look for Ho on the way.”
    Lillka and Brendan exchanged glances. “If you can work it out with him,” the blond girl said, “then go. I’m not going to argue with you—I have too many other things to worry about.”
    Zoheret got up and went to fetch Bonnie.

11
    They had traveled past the lake and through woods without finding a sign of Ho’s group. During the night, they had slept uneasily in a clearing, keeping watch throughout the night in pairs. Zoheret and Tonio were traveling with four others; Lillka had insisted on keeping the group small. Zoheret had picked the group carefully. Dmitri and Serena were trusted by Tonio, but Dmitri, along with Kagami