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“If Dawes was frozen before they left, she might not even know.”
“That thought had occurred to us as well. So we were really glad when you found that memo about the sickness. It meant we didn’t have to rely on her anymore. But we still have to wake her up, and the answers that she can still give me… I find I don’t want to know.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what she’s referring to.
“You mean whether she was involved in what happened to you?”
“She wasn’t there,” Brooks says. “It was just Farrow and two of my military tier colleagues. But maybe it was her idea, her suggestion. How am I supposed to live with her, work with her, if she had any part in it?”
I consider it for a moment, even though I’m pretty confident of what I’m about to say. I don’t want Brooks thinking I’m just trying to make her feel better.
“I doubt she was involved. What happened to you - it was fucking awful. Personally, but also scientifically. Science tier are meticulous to a fault. Careful in everything they do. What they did to you wasn’t careful. It wasn’t scientific. You think the master plan was to have raskarrans raping human women to impregnate them? When artificial insemination is so much less risky? It stinks of someone getting impatient, trying to cut corners.”
Farrow, probably. Someone with an eye on the glory and nothing else. Brooks could have died. The raskarran did die. Anyone on science tier would have foreseen those risks and thought them not worth taking.
“She’s still not going to be easy to live with,” I say. “She still oversaw the experiment that led to us both being brought out here to be breeders. But given that we’re both happy with how that turned out, maybe it won’t be so difficult to ignore.”
Brooks’ expression turns almost shy. “You really are happy? It’s not just…”
“Post-coital glow?”
She actually blushes. “Your mate is my mate’s brother, remember? That makes you both my family. I’ve never had a family before. Don’t really know how to be a part of one. But for what it’s worth, it would make me happy, if you were happy. I want you to be happy. Both of you.”
“Well, I never had a family that gave a fuck if I was happy before,” I say, surprised by how rough my voice sounds. Surprised by how much this awkward but earnest overture of friendship, of sisterhood, means to me. “So you’re already an improvement.”
“At least that makes them easier to leave behind, I guess?”
I think of my mother, the proud lines of her face. The bruises she always had on her jaw, around her eyes. I’ve often wondered why she wanted the same fate for me, even though she wasn’t meek and completely downtrodden like the other women in her position. She still had a strength inside her, and she used it against me. Cut me out rather than be proud that I was forging myself a different kind of life.
“I left them behind a long time ago.” I look over at Brooks. “You have a first name? If we’re sisters-in-law, I figure that’s something I should know about you.”
Brooks shrugs. “I didn’t. Chose one for myself a few days ago, but I’m not used to it yet, and I don’t think anyone else is, either. It’s Deborah. I don’t mind being called Brooks, though.”
“Deborah. It suits you.”
A pleased blush creeps into her cheeks, and I decide I’ll do my best to call her by her chosen name from now on.
“Thanks,” she says. Her expression goes gentle. “You sure you’re okay with everything? If there’s anything you need to talk about, any questions you need to ask…”
“I’m good,” I say, and though I say it almost reflexively, I realise it’s true. “Always thought I didn’t want a man in my life. Turns out I just didn’t want a shit one.”
Deborah laughs. “The guys I was used to being around - it was hard to believe a man who wasn’t shit existed.”
“Only had to go to a whole other planet to find one. What do the female raskarrans think about all of this, though? Interlopers coming and snatching up their good men?”
Her expression immediately drops. “Didn’t Liv tell you?”
I’m about to say ‘tell me what’ when something floats up through my memory. A thing Liv said, and I dismissed because I thought it was just part of the fake scenario. But the scenario wasn’t fake and I feel like I should have remembered that little tidbit long before now.
“There are no raskarran women?”
Deborah nods, her expression solemn. “All killed by the sickness. It nearly wiped the raskarrans out. If we hadn’t arrived, it would have done. It just would have taken another sixty years or so.”
“It killed all the women?”
“Awful, isn’t it? Imagine staring down a future where there will never be any children, you’ll just grow older, your family and friends dwindling around you, until eventually, someone is the last survivor. And then that’s it. Your entire people, gone. It’s why a lot of the other tribes have gone bad. Turned from Lina’s path, as the raskarrans would say. Honestly, I don’t know how Maldek and the others in our tribe managed to stay as good as they are, knowing that was the end they would come to.”
It’s bleak, for sure, but that isn’t what my brain is stuck on.
