“Of course she is special,” Dr. Veragelen attempts to soothe. “But what I’m talking about is another sort of special altogether.”
I take a slow, deep breath and look Dr. Veragelen right in the eye. “And once the heptosphere is activated, then what?”
She finally takes a sip of her fiznachi. “Hopefully, your part in the proceedings will be over. Of course, you’ll be required to stay around in case you’re needed again. But I believe we’ll be able to take over from there and fire a blast of pure hydrogen into the sun, which will cause a reverse fusion reaction and halt the decay of Serai so that things will go back to normal.”
“Halt the decay of Serai,” I confirm. But something is niggling at me. Something that makes my heart start to pound. “If Serai is fired on by pure hydrogen, what will happen to the planets closest to it?”
Dr. Veragelen’s cheek tics furiously, but when she finally answers, her voice is as composed as usual. “Unfortunately, the inner planets will be destroyed in the explosion. But as you know, these are hard times, and sacrifices have to be made.”
No.
I feel sick as I watch my mother’s face while Dr. Veragelen speaks, searching for some sign of reluctance, of revulsion. But there’s nothing except a hint of relief that chills me to my core.
She knew this was Dr. Veragelen’s plan all along, and she doesn’t have any compunctions about it. How is that possible? And how could I have never seen it before?
“I cannot abide sacrificing three whole planets’ worth of people,” I tell them. “Why can’t you relocate the people from the inner planets first, get them to safety before I activate the heptosphere?”
“Unfortunately, that’s not an option,” Dr. Veragelen tells me in a voice that says she doesn’t think it’s unfortunate at all.
“You can’t honestly support this, can you?” I ask, pleading with my mother for some sign of remorse. Some sign that she isn’t as horrible as I’m afraid she is.
Her spine is ramrod straight. “The Corporation has provided me with the reports and information I need to make the decision. Leaders have to make hard choices, Kalinda. If we didn’t do anything, then everyone would die. This is the only option we have.”
“Then evacuate,” I say. “There’s still time. We have years before the system reaches danger levels.”
“You’re wrong. We’ve been keeping things quiet to avoid panic, but the Corporation believes we have months, not years, before Serai dies and takes all of us with her.”
Months? Shock holds me rigid for several seconds. It doesn’t seem possible that in months we could all be dead. Not that it matters for me. Murdering millions of people to save others isn’t the answer. It can’t be.
Dr. Veragelen continues. “Maybe if you hadn’t taken your little…detour, we could have evacuated the inner planets in time. But with you presumed dead, we were exploring other avenues. It really was thoughtless of you to not contact us for so long.”
She’s trying to say it’s my fault? I fight to keep my outrage from showing on my face.
“If we work quickly,” Dr. Veragelen says, “we might have time to remove any alien artifacts of interest from Serati. But that’s it.”
“Then work quickly and take the fucking people off first.” My voice is rising. I’m losing the cool I’ve worked so hard to maintain.
“Language, Kalinda. And where would you propose we put these people?” my mother asks, brows arched. “No planet is equipped for that kind of immigrant influx. We can barely keep them fed as it is.”
Dr. Veragelen chooses that moment to get to her feet, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from her immaculate black lab suit. “I fear I must leave you two alone to discuss this. I have preparations to make. I will see you tomorrow, Your Highness,” she finishes with a pointed look.
I don’t even glance her way or acknowledge her comment. I’m staring at my mother. There’s a slight flush on her cheeks, and her mouth is a pinched line. She doesn’t say anything until the door closes behind the doctor.
But as soon as we hear the snick of it closing, she turns to me. “Are you out of your mind to question me like this?” she says. “What has come over you, Kali? You’re acting like you’re some sort of…rebel.”
“Why? Just because I don’t believe we should kill millions of people?”
“No. Because you are questioning your Empress.” Her voice is like steel, the look in her eyes beyond dangerous.
And while I want nothing more than to ask why people shouldn’t question her—if she’s doing the right thing, she’ll have nothing to fear from questions about it—I’m smart enough to figure out that doing so will send her completely over the edge. And since I don’t want to totally push her away tonight, I grit my teeth and take a large rhetorical step back.
“I apologize, Mother. You always taught me that I need to understand the decisions we make. And I still don’t understand this one. It seems…” Words fail me.
She reaches across the table and fills my glass with fiznachi—a big concession for her. “You know what’s at stake here, Kalinda—we’ve shared the timeline with you now. Surely you can see the impossible situation we’re in. We’re balancing on a knife’s edge, and any little thing will send us spinning toward certain disaster. I’m doing this to save as many people as possible. But I can’t save everyone.”
I want to believe the sadness I see in her eyes, but I can’t. Because I know she doesn’t care about the lives of the people on the inner planets. She just cares that she has her perfect life here in the palace. Shit, we could probably fit a few hundred refugees in our empty rooms alone.
But then she shrugs. “Plus, think about this rationally. The reduction in population will mean the resources will last longer—we’ll no longer have to supply grain to the Inners. And, of course, there’s the added advantage that with the destruction of Serati, we’ll eliminate the threat from the Sisterhood of the Light, who are getting too powerful for their own good. And with Permuna gone, we’ll wipe out most of the Rebellion supporters and stop their endless uprisings.”
The thought sickens me, has my stomach twisting itself into knots and my lungs tightening to the point of pain.
My mother is a sociopath. There’s no other explanation for what she’s saying, what I’m hearing. She wants to murder millions of people because it will make things more convenient for her, and what’s not to like about that?
“And what about Kridacus?” I ask in an amazingly calm tone, considering it’s taking every ounce of self-control I have not to scream at her. Or puke all over her fancy white couch.
She waves a careless hand. “They’re parasites, sucking the resources from the other planets and giving nothing back. Can’t you see it’s a win-win, Kali? We’ll actually be helping so many people if we do this.”
Win-win? This is a nightmare.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she suddenly snaps, and all attempts at civility are gone from her tone.