Gaia's Brood

Chapter 37

"Have you ever seen the like, Trent?"

It's morning. To our surprise, no hostile craft pursued us. Curiously, the further we receded from Cutter's Edge, the brighter the light from the Reaver bonfires became, until finally, the glow shut off, like someone turned out the lights. Our escape must have triggered some sort of fight between factions—they were obviously too busy fighting each other to bother about us.

We stand in the map room of the Shonti Bloom examining Jed's box. Outside it's a plain wooded crate with a flat top; inside it's more like a coffin. A body lies in the box. A girl about my age, surrounded by packing to protect the dead flesh. Tubes stick out of her nose and mouth, and her hands, arms, and neck; wires trail out of her skull; pipes snake from every orifice. It is the most surreal thing I have ever seen. The scariest thing, though, is her face. How could anyone do this to another human?

Everyone else is crowded in behind me, except Scud who is lurking in the doorway, unwilling to enter the same room as the offending box.

Trent sucks in a noisy breath and stares with wide eyes. "Wow, the White Woman." He breathes with reverence.

"You know about this?" His words fill me with rage. Suddenly, I'm not sure if I really do trust him. How does he know about this cargo, and if he knows, then what else is he withholding?

I force myself breath calmly and stare at the perfectly preserved body of the girl. The White Woman is a good name: her hair and eyebrows are purest white and her naked body is covered in the most delicately pale almost translucent skin I have ever seen. Fernando drapes a white sheet over her in an attempt to preserve some dignity, which just adds to the effect, but whoever sealed her in the box made no such attempt.

Trent's gaze remains fixed on the form in the box. "I've been around. I've heard rumors. The White Woman is supposed to be some top secret Science Guild project to save humanity. I never thought I would live to see her though."

"Save us from what?" Izzy asks aggressively. She's almost as spooked out by this as I am. though for her it isn't personal.

"From extinction. Have you never wondered why so many platforms are only half occupied or completely abandoned? Why there are so few children? Our birth rate is dropping drastically. We are slowly becoming infertile—soon we will be extinct. The White Woman is meant to be our savior, the solution, the one who restores our fertility, saves the human race."

Panic floods my brain at his words. "What do we do with her?"

Fernando has no doubts. "Ditch Blondie over the side, get it as far away from us as possible. Someone is going to be looking for this."

"Absolutely not," Trent snaps, "we must return it to where it belongs."

"That means giving ourselves up," Izzy points out, "and we can add kidnapping and smuggling to our list of supposed crimes."

Fernando looks even more uncomfortable than he did before.

"She's a person," I remind everyone, "not an object to be traded and owned."

"She's an experiment," Trent says, "a lab rat. I doubt whether she's ever been conscious in her life."

Is consciousness required to make you a person? Without self-awareness what are we?

"Anyone who goes to the trouble of growing this, is gonna try very hard to get it back," Fernando blurts. "Which is why we should ditch it. Now."

Izzy shakes her head. "We have to keep it... I mean her... as a bargaining chip. If the Science Guild tracks her to us, and we don't have her, we're all dead."

"Great," Fernando spits, "my reputation is definitely not going to survive this."

"Typical, Fernando." Izzy smirks. "More worried about your precious reputation than your neck. Is there anyone who is not pursuing us?"

Trent barks a sarcastic laugh. "Only the Reavers, they're incredibly fertile—breed like sparrows."

Holy smoke. I remember what Jed said. "Er, actually, guys." They all turn alarmed faces towards me. "Jed thought the Reavers invaded Cutter's Edge looking for the White Woman." The whole world really is after us.

I want to laugh at their faces—immobile, mouths open, like someone stopped time. In another situation this would be hilarious. Perhaps one day I will look back and chuckle—if I live that long.

Scud, standing as far away from the box as he can, recovers first. "I was right—it wasn't a Reaver raiding party. They came in force to find Leanne." He gestures toward the White Woman.

"You named her," Fernando explodes. I can always rely on Fernando to rile against Scud's oddities, even in the most difficult of circumstances. "How could you possibly name that thing?"

"I have to. It's the only way I can think about her. Otherwise..." He looks helplessly at me and shrugs.

He's right: giving her a personality makes it easier to push the emotions aside and consider her objectively. Scud, who gives numbers to people and names to things, understands in a way the rest of us don't. It's one of his endearing qualities: his unique view of the world often reveals truths which are hidden to the rest of us.

"Okay, so what do we do with..." Fernando scowls. "...with Leanne?"

"We have no option," Trent states with an authority I have never heard before. For a moment it changes his whole appearance—taller, brighter, commanding. He catches the look in my eye and suddenly he's the same old Trent again. "If the Reavers know about the White Woman, we must return her to the Science Guild. Put an end to this."

What did I just see? Did I imagine Trent morphing into someone else? How is that possible? I'm tired and under stress, my mind is playing tricks.

"That won't end anything," Scud mumbles, "they'll still be after us."

We all turn to him.

"Well look at her." He gestures towards the box. "It's not just about Leanne, it's about Nina. They could be twins." Again he is right and it scares me silly.

I stare again at the face of the White Woman, Leanne, and feel again the panic rising in my chest which threatens to overwhelm me. She looks so much like me it sends a shudder down my spine every time I look at her.

Even though she terrifies me and sets my heart pumping with adrenalin, I feel a strange affinity towards Leanne, my mysterious twin, even though I never knew her. I wonder if she ever knew herself. In one sense I'm relieved we're not ditching her, I know it's weird, but she feels almost like family.

If Leanne isn't my twin she must be my clone. Except for the white hair and the pale skin, the White Woman is Nina Swift. What would I do with me?