“Impossible!” cried First, turning on Melanie. Melanie held out her hands, palms up, her face very pale. “You can’t know that,” the dark man cried, his hand clenched on the table before him. “Melanie has just given the problem to the machines. They are just now working on it . . .”
“Machines or no machines, you will be invaded,” said Genevieve calmly. “The first dose of P’naki that was sold off-planet made it inevitable. Once people out there learned that long life could be found on Haven, it became only a matter of time until they would attempt to take the planet. An invasion force may be already on the way.”
“From where?” demanded Melanie.
“Among the planets most likely to attack I would guess either Chamis or Ares. They are closest. Of those two I would say most likely Ares, for the Lord Paramount’s Aresian guards have had the freedom of the palace for several years and Aresia has a powerful motive. Their planet is dying.”
“The spirit has departed their world?” asked Fifth.
Genevieve made a dismissive gesture. “Leave religion aside. I don’t believe or disbelieve, but it doesn’t affect what’s going to happen. When the invading forces get here, they will do whatever is necessary to find out how the life stuff is produced. For a time they may be misled by the identification of P’naki as a fever medicine, for most of Haven, at least, believes that to be true. They may try to find out peaceably, but if that doesn’t work, they will resort to torture, or drugs, or both. Once they find out, they will use every woman on this world to fertilize the lichen, including all your women, and they will enslave all the men.”
She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “They will regret this deeply, but they will do it. It is likely all the children on Haven will be shipped to Ares, for their population is falling, and they desperately need more people.
“Then, having used up the women of Haven, they will buy or steal women from other worlds. This will inevitably lead to war among several worlds, and in the end this planet will be ruined forall forms of life.” She paused, looking at each of them, significantly. “It is inevitable. It will not take long for it to happen. Unless the lichen is destroyed.”
The room erupted in hubbub, people yelling at one another. Genevieve got up and left. She went to the kitchen and asked the cook if she might have something to eat. Inside she felt fiery, as though she had swallowed a furnace. Two glasses of tea did nothing to put out the flame. Slowly she ate fruit and a circle of flat bread wrapped around a slice of fish in hot sauce,
“Brought by our visitors,” the cook advised.
It didn’t matter who brought it. She couldn’t taste it. She was resolutely staring at her empty plate when Melanie came to fetch her.
“Have they stopped yelling?” Genevieve asked. “You know I won’t talk to them anymore unless they’ve finished.”
“There are still some raised voices.”
“I will not be shouted at. I have told them what is necessary. I will not defend it against their doubts. If they have not wits to see it, then let them suffer the consequences.”
“You are not the same girl who came here two nights ago, full of tears and sorrows,” cried Melanie, with more than a little anger. “What got into you?
“I am doing my best to be someone else,” Genevieve replied, her tight jaw belying the tears in her eyes. “For eleven years I was programmed by my mother to be two people, one public, one private. The public person was quiet and sedate and covenantly. The private person was something I can’t even describe to you. I’ve been a conduit for Mother’s forces and Father’s furies, for intentions set into motion generations ago, for covenants decided millennia in the past. I’m through playing parts written by other people. This will have to be a role I will write myself. I may die of it, but it will be mine or no one’s.
“And while I’m doing it, I won’t accept rudeness, Melanie. Let them listen or not, as they choose, but I will not be shouted at.”