Earthseed

seemed too soft. She slept unevenly, woke, and got up, dressing in the new clothes Ship had provided.
    “It’s early,” Ship said gently.
    “I’ve had enough sleep.” She tucked in her shirt and straightened her pants.
    “I have been thinking of what you told everyone before, and have tried to question the Earthpeople, though they seem unwilling to talk to me now that I am keeping them locked up. During all the time I have traveled, whatever problems I have had, I never doubted my purpose. I had faith in those who had built me, who had given me life. However knowledgeable I was, they knew more—whatever wisdom I had learned, they were wiser. That was my faith. I spoke to you of their dreams, of their beliefs. That was what they gave me to reason with—the premises were theirs. Now those premises are shaken, and I do not know what to believe.”
    “These people are only a small group, Ship. The others who built you must be different—the fact that most of them stayed behind proves that.”
    “But I wasn’t told the truth about the Project. A small band rebelling against the consensus of their society—that is what I represent. I thought I carried all of human culture inside me—and now I find that I carry only a distorted picture. I was deceived.”
    Zoheret frowned. “You deceived us, too. You never told us about Aleksandr and the others.”
    “I thought it was best.”
    “You never told us that you were supposed to abandon us and seed other worlds.”
    “The day will come when you will no longer wish to speak to me. I’ll be only a tiny star above you.”
    She went to the door. It whispered open. Aleksandr was pacing the hall. “Can’t you sleep?” he asked.
    “Can’t you?”
    “I’ve been waiting for your friends.”
    “Aren’t they here?”
    “They are not anywhere in the corridors,” Ship answered.
    Zoheret clasped her hands together. “They should have been here by now.”
    “I can turn on my sensors,” Ship said, “and check the Hollow. Given the circumstances, I should be allowed to break my promise.”
    “Then do it,” Aleksandr said, drawing Zoheret back into her room. “But be careful. We want the strangers to think you’ve been shut down.”
    “They cannot detect my observations as long as I do not speak in their presence or turn my lenses and microphones to focus.”
    “Turn on the screen,” Aleksandr ordered. They gazed through Ship’s infrared eyes at the still-darkened Hollow, seeing pale trees, an empty plain, then a glimmering lake. The scene changed again.
    At first Zoheret did not understand what she was seeing. Reddened shapes, bound together, staggered along behind a metal beast. She cried out. Ho’s group had been captured. She heard their wails and moans.
    “No,” she said, unable to look any more. “No.” She covered her eyes.
    “I am helpless,” Ship murmured. “I can do nothing without endangering everyone in the Hollow.”
    “You’re not helpless,” Aleksandr replied. “You’ll guide us. Wake everyone up. Even Yusef will have to help us now.”

19
    Yusef had tried out the vehicle, and had discovered that he could steer it by pressing the dashboard buttons in various sequences. There was barely room for everyone inside; they were crowded together on the seats. Kieu, sitting between Yusef and Zoheret, picked up one of the two captured weapons Yusef had propped against his seat.
    “It kills,” Yusef said. “If you’re not prepared to use it, leave it alone.” Kieu put the weapon down.
    Aleksandr shook his head. “No killing. We’ll do the best we can with nonlethal weapons.”
    “That’s foolish,” Yusef said. “We need everything we can get. I know how to use them now.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    The blind Luis and two others had stayed behind. If the battle was lost, they were to close off the corridors; the Hollow would be sealed while they revived their comrades. But Petra and her friends could hold those inside the Hollow hostage, bending Ship to their will. Would Ship be willing to trade its conscious mind for their lives? Or would it abandon them?
    They crawled rapidly over the plain. Zoheret wished that there had been more time to plan; they were being forced to improvise. They would travel as far as the swamp; then one group would leave the craft and approach the settlement through the woods while the others waited by the vehicle. Ship would pass them a signal. When the craft arrived in the settlement, the people there