Earthseed

pleased with that; the dimmer light would make it easier for her to hide. She looked up at her shack. When night came, she might be able to get inside without being seen; if Lillka was there, she could question her.
    Voices jabbered above her; she crouched. The voices grew faint. Water seeped into her boots. Someone was walking along the bank; she noted the blossom behind one ear and recognized Bonnie. The girl was alone. As she drew nearer, Zoheret hissed, then whispered, “Bonnie.”
    Bonnie crept closer. “Zoheret!”
    “Quiet!” Zoheret flailed through the reeds toward a thick bush higher on the bank and sat under it, motioning to the other girl. Bonnie looked around, then hurried toward her.
    “What are you doing?” Bonnie said in a low voice as she sat down. “Where are the others?”
    “They’re prisoners of Ho and his group.”
    Bonnie sighed in dismay. “You got away, then.”
    “No, Ho sent me here.”
    “ Sent you?”
    “He wants supplies. If he doesn’t get them, he’ll take it out on the others. He won’t feed them until I get back. You know what he’s like. He means it.”
    Bonnie shook her head. “We have enough trouble already. I don’t know how to tell you this.”
    “What’s happening here? I saw a dispenser on the storehouse porch, and a strange man. Who is he?” She thought of Aleksandr and Kieu, afraid she already knew.
    “They came here on the day you left. They came riding up in those vehicles of theirs. We got out our weapons, but Lillka told us not to fight until she talked to them, so we waited. They told us they’d come to help, but they were surprised to find us here—they’d expected infants in the nursery at most.”
    “But who are they?”
    Bonnie put one hand on Zoheret’s arm. “You won’t believe this. They’re from Earth—from the Project.”
    “But that’s impossible.”
    “They said they’d been suspended and stored aboard Ship. They thought Ship wouldn’t be able to raise us alone, so they were going to have themselves revived just before we were born, to bring us up. They knew it was risky, but they did it anyway. They knew Ship’s plans, so they set their devices so they’d be awakened just before we were supposed to be born. But something went wrong, so they didn’t wake up until now.”
    So this group, Zoheret thought, had nothing to do with Aleksandr and his friends. If their plan had worked, they would have been awakened before that group’s birth.
    “When they came into the Hollow,” Bonnie continued, “they tried to speak to Ship, but it didn’t answer, so they realized that its sensors were probably shut down. I think that scared them, though they wouldn’t admit it when they were speaking to us. They decided they’d better stay in the Hollow and figure out what to do, so they brought out more equipment. Finally, they found us, and that was when they knew they’d been awakened too late.”
    “But Ship never told us about them.”
    “They claim,” Bonnie said, “that Ship didn’t know.”
    “Ship had to know.”
    “They said it didn’t. It was toward the end of the Project—they were aboard before Ship was activated. They’ve been in suspension ever since Ship left Earth, but it never knew they were aboard.”
    “But Ship would have found out eventually.”
    “Not if it had no sensors in the part of itself where they were. They probably made sure of that. And they weren’t part of the plan, so Ship wouldn’t even have suspected anything.” Bonnie frowned. “I don’t like them. They’re telling us what to do, and it’s hard to stand up to them. They’ve got their own ideas about how things should go. They’re putting up more fences—they say it’s to protect the settlement—and they’re beginning to check on where we are all the time. I don’t know what to think.”
    “Do the others feel the way you do?”
    Bonnie shrugged. “I don’t know. I think a lot of them are too busy stuffing down food to care, and now they don’t have to make decisions. Besides, what can we do? They talked us into giving up our weapons, supposedly for our own safety and so that they could keep track of them, and now you can’t get one without their permission. They know Ship’s sensors are off—Lillka confirmed that. People who don’t do what they say get the dirtiest jobs to do—Gowon got waste collection when they found out he’d hidden his gun. Somebody must have told them. That’s another thing—you don’t